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REGULARS 


Monitor 2 

Survey attacks micro usefulness, page 
2; Amstrad sorts out software tangle, 
page 3; Osborne finds no holes in Polo , 
page 4; and IBM brings its portable to 
the UK, page 5. 

PCN Charts 6 

Britain's only weekly chart shows the 
relative fortunes of the stars of the 
games arena. 

RandomAccess 9 

Your letters — a chance to air your 
opinions on anything to do with 
microcomputing, with a tenner for the 
best. 

Routine Inquiries 10 

What’s holding you up? Our panel of 
experts offers advice and solutions. 

Microwaves 12 

Readers hints and tips for the Oric, 
Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad 

Readout 15 

Read any good micro books lately? 
We advise on what to pick off the 
shelves. 

Clubnet 16 

The OL has been selected to brighten 
the prospects of an Edinburgh-based 
group. 

Software Pre-View 33 

A quick survey of the new packages 
that have arrived at PCN this week. 



August 11 1984 No 73 



Basic comparison 1 8 

The Amstrad CPC comes complete 
with a powerful version of Basic. 
Simon williams has been learning the 
new dialect developed by Locomo- 
tive, and points out the main features 
and differences from BBC Basic. 


HARDWARE 


Storage scale-up 31 

The IBM PC gains megabytes of 
storage with the Alpha 10 hard disk 
system, weighed up by John Lettice. 



IBM integration 34 

Database Manager II should not stand 
alone — it is designed to create a link 
that transfers data from one standard 
package to another, and save a lot of 
time and bother. 

Graphic account 36 

Charting a new course is made easier 
by Chartpack-64 which converts data 
from spreadsheets etc into more 
comprehensible charts and graphs — 
and then dumps them to a printer. 


GAMEPLAY 


Spectrum 38 

Whether you’re into working out on 
the tennis court or motorcycle racing, 
your sport is catered for. 

BBCB 39 

Variety rules — try a text-only 
Dungeons and Dragons adventure ora 
3-D tank battle. 


Billboard 43 

Something for everyone on PCN’s buy 
and sell page — and this week you can 
put your ad in for free. 

Quit/Datelines 48 

Dates for your diary, and a look at the 
lighter side of microcomputing with 
results of the Laughline competition. 



Electric Oric 22 

Having trouble budgeting for your 
electricity bills? Andy Newham shows 
how your Oric can help. 



Toteallc 24 

ADple’s new portable marks a change 
of direction. Richard King delivers 
this full Pro-Test. 


PERIPHERALS 


PROGRAMS 



Spectrum 40 

Mega the Millipede roams around the 
Spectrum screen in this version of the 
popular arcade game. 


Dragon contact 29 

Putting the Dragon in touch with the 
outside world is the purpose of the 
versatile RS232 I/O interface. We test 
one that’s out of the ordinary. 



PCN AUGUST1I1 











PCN MONITOR 


Survey slams micro use 







PCN MONITOR 


VIEW FROM JAPAN 



Big guns 
battle for 
ad space 


Sirius, the dog star, has emerged from his kennei and the dog days are 
upon us. In the present as in the past the dog days are a period of 
— in other words not much has 


In a fH of desperation I’ve decided to take you on a tour of Jap 
leading computer magazines, and the first stop on this Mkhelin G< 
to publishing is one that bears the highly original title of Ascii (as in the 
ASCII of MSX notoriety |. Ascii describes itself as ‘a monthly magazine of 
computer science'. I was going to start off by telling you that it's about 


But I got a bad allocation table; I'm amazed. I'm astonished, my mind is 
boggled by what the Japanese public 
Ascii starts off confidently enough; it has a cover. The cover bears a 
Dictum, in the case of the latest issue a slight i- 

to be a Lisa frozen in a block of ice. Phew, what a scorcher. I 

NEC has taken 
advertisement of its PC. 
This is followed by a two-page index partially in English, so that I can tell 
as 059, CP/M, and the 



could become a life’s work. The next 106 pages am ac 
Perhaps Ascii is monthly because nobody could possibly find the time 
for that much browsing every week. 


race horses in the later stages of a long race, the favourites bunched at 

ttiefront and the less fancied beasts strung out b< “* 

going a bit hard. NEC, covering its bets, has se 
pages at the front advertising two different systems, followed by four for 
Sharp, followed by another four lor NEC — one S) ’ 


3in OEM disk drives, and then another group of heavyweights — two 
pages for Toshiba, four for Fujitsu, two for Sony, two for Seikosha 
for Hitachi, leading to yet another NEC advertising page. The field is 
brought up by no fewer than 11 consecutive pages of Ascii advertising. 


that the quality of the editorial 
attracts the advertising. But let’s look at H from another point of view. 
“• •“ ‘ None of them gives the 


Osborne takes 
the IBM trail 


The rejuvenation of Osborne UK is 
continuing with a change of name 
and an addition to the top of its 
product line. 

The company is now run by 
Future Management . which bought 
out Osborne in this country but 
maintained its product line and the 
responsibility for its users. Mike 
Healy is still in charge . and he is now 
promoting the IBM-compatible 
Polo. There is also a replacement 
for the original Osborne 1 in the 
wind — a portable with greater disk 
storage and a larger screen, likely to 
cost just above £1.000. 

The Polo’s high degree of IBM 
compatibility has won enthusiastic 
reviews in the US. It is built by a US 
company substantially owned by 
Radofin. maker of the Aquarius. 

The machine combines an 80188 
andaZ80,andal28K system witha 
printer, colour monitor, and bun- 


dled software is likely to cost about 
£3.000 depending on the fluctua- 
tions of the pound. The software 
includes Supercalc, SuperWriter, 
PFS File and Crosstalk. Where 
other IBM software can't be direct- 
ly ported across. Polo has an 
arrangement with Softeam to make 
the implementation. 

Although it will be a new name to 
European users — those who don’t 
drive Volkswagens — Polo is far 
from being a Johnny-come-lately. 
The company has been operating in 
the US for 20 years, and it has the 
kind of Silicon Valley address that 
still inspires awe. It also pays 
attention to such European consid- 
erations as ergonomics. 

Future Management now lines 
up with the Executive luggable at 
about £1,000, the Encore portable 
in the £1.600 region, and the Polo 
desk-top system. 


Compass plugs in more Grids 


Compass range (issue 51). 

You can now pick up the basic 
model for £4,134 and there’s a 23 to 
30 per cent reduction on models 
1100. 1101 and 1109. Two new 
portables have also been added — 
the Compasses 1121 and 1129. 

The 1121 comes with 256K of 
RAM , 384K of bubble memory and 
can hold up to 512K of ROM. The 
1129 has the same features but512K 
of RAM. Both models can give 



increased performance at similar 
prices to the original Compass 
computers. 

Grid has also extended its man- 
agement tools software range to a 
total of eight at £902. In addition to 
word processor, spreadsheet, 
graphics, database and file pack- 
ages, there's GridAccess, GridRc- 
cord/GridPlayback and Grid- 
Transfer. 

GridAccess allows Compass 
computers to send and receive data 
to one another. GridRecord/Grid- 
Playback records the keystorkes 
of routine tasks and allows their 
automatic playback at a single 
command. GridTransfer converts 
MSDOS data files to Grid-OS data 
files and vice versa. 

Portable users wanting to com- 
municate with mainframes and 

Server. The networking system 
allows up to 58 users of IBM PCs or 
Grid Compass computers to access 
data from any location. All Grid- 
Compass products arc available 
from Thame Systems, Tel: 084 421 
5471. 


Modems maker ready for off 



They am also a measure of the resources that Japanese companies 
can bring to bear to sell their products. As I mentioned in an earlier 
column (issue 711, Toshiba and Sanyo are about to get serious about 
the computer market in the UK and Europe, and it could be that dog days 
will never be the same again once they, the advance guard, arrive. 


The low-price acoustic modem 
announced by Protck Computing of 
Livingston could be in the shops by 
the end of this month. 

Problems with supplies of the 
American-made chips hit the firm's 
plans. But now production should 
get going in the next week or so. 

The modem will cost £59.95 and 
Spectrum users will have to pay an 
extra £24.95 for an interface, cables 
and software. For BBC micro 


owners .software and cables costing 
£14.95 will be required. 

Protek is planning a range of 
modems of the hard-wired variety 

been particularly high, says Protck 
Computing's managing director 
Gordon Hewit. 

As for the firm’s hit program 

verted for the Amstrad and should 
be in the shops now. 


PCN AUGUST 11 1984 




IPCN MONITOR 



IBM portable’s bow 

£ Keyboard bite 


Sdaz 


V V SOFTWARE 








PCM 7-TTTT 





NEW WEEKLY CHART! NEW WEEKLY CHART 


GAME TITLE 

PUBLISHER 

MACHINE 

PRICE 

1 

2 

Match Point 

Psion 

SP 

£7.95 

2 

25 

Full Throttle 

Micromeqa 

SP 

£6.95 

3 

1 

Sabre Wult 

Ultimate 

SP 

£9.95 

4 

3 

TLL 

Vortex 

SP 

£5.95 

5 

6 

Beach-head 

US Gold 

C64 

£9.95 

6 

5 

Lords of Midniqht 

Beyond 

SP 

£9.95 

7 

10 

Jet Set Willy 

Software Projects 

SP 

£5.95 

8 

7 

Arabian Nights 

Interceptor 

C64 

£7.00 

9 

8 

Mugsy 

Melbourne 

SP 

£6.95 

10 

14 

Jack & Beanstalk 

Thor 

SP 

£5.95 

11 

4 

Valhalla 

Legend 

SP.C64 

£14.95 

12 

12 

Psvtron 

Beyond 

SP 

£7.95 

13 

9 

War of the Worlds 

CRL 

SP 

£5.95 

14 

13 

Trashman 

New Generation 

SP.C64 

£5.95 

15 

11 

Hulk 

Adventure International 

SP, C64, AC, AT 

£9.95 

16 

20 

Cavelon 

Ocean 

SP.C64 

£5.90 

17 

17 

Stop the Express 

Psion 

SP 

£5.95 

18 

30 

Micro Olympics 

Database 

SP. C64, AC 

£6.95 

19 

18 

Beaky & Egg Snatchers 

Fantasy 

SP 

£6.50 

20 

16 

Fiqhter Pilot 

Digital 

SP 

£7.95 

21 

15 

Loco 

Alligata 

C64 

£7.95 

22 

22 

Encounter 

Novagen 

C64.AT 

£8.95 

23 

23 

737 Flight Path 

Amrog 

Vic, C64 

£7.00 

24 

— 

Blagger 

Alligata 

C64.AC 

£7.95 

25 

27 

Kosmic Kanga 

Micromania 

SP 

£5.95 

26 


Code Name Mat 

Micromeqa 

SP 

£6.95 

27 


Aztec Challenge 

Audiogenic 

C64.AT 

£8.95 

28 

28 

Son of Blaqqer 

Alligata 

C64 

£7.95 

29 

19 

Frakl 

Aardvark 

AC 

£7.50 

30 

26 

Football Manager 

Addictive 

SP, C64, AC 

£6.95 





1 TW 

LW~ 

MACHINE 

PRICE 

DISTRIBUTOR 


TW 

IvT 

MACHINE 

PRICE 1 01 

► 1 

1 

IBM PC 

£2,390 

IBM 


1 

Spectrum 

£99 Si 

1 *-2 

2 

Apricot 

£1,760 

ACT 

► 2 

2 


£199 CE 

A3 

7 

Compaq 

£1,960 

Compaq 

▲ 3 

s 

BBC B 

£399 |A( 

▼ 4 

3 

Apple III 

£2,755 

Apple 

►4 

4 

Vic 20 

£140 Cl 

1 ►s 

5 

Televideo TS1 603 

£2,640 


▼ 5 

3 

Electron 

£199 "lAc 

A 6 

8 

Wang Professional 

£3,076 

Wang 

A6 

7 

Memotech 500 

£250 M 

T 7 

4 

Sirius 

£2,525 

ACT 

▲ 7 


Amstrad 

£229 Ar 

1 A 8 


Kaypro 

£1,604 

Kaypro 

▲ 8 

9 

Oric 

£99 "foi 

I ^9 
| A 10 

2— 

Philips P2000c 

NCR Decision Mate V 

£1,484 

£1,984 

MD.KDS 

NCR 

T9 

► 10 

10 

Atari 800XL 

£250 At 


These charts ar 


ipiled from both independent and multiple sources across the nation They reflect what's happening in high streets 
during the week up to August 1 . The games chart is updated every week 
Neither mail order nor deposit-only orders are included in these listings The prices quoted are for the no-frills models and include VAT 
Information for the top-selling micros is culled from retailers and dealers throughout the country and is updated every month 
PCN Charts are compiled exclusively lor us by RAM/C. who can be contacted on 01-892 6596 






MILES BETTER SOFTWARE 

221 Cannock Road, 

Chadsmore, Cannock, 

Staffs WS11 2DD. 

Tel: 0543 53577 

U.S. GOLD SOFTWARE 


Beach Head 

8.95 

12.00 

‘Solo Flight 

12.00 

12.00 

‘Forbidden Forest 

7.95 

12.00 

‘Aztec Challenge 

7.95 

12.00 

‘Slinky 

8.95 

12.00 

‘Caverns of Khafka 

7.95 

12.00 

‘Dallas Quest 



12.00 

‘Flak 



12.00 

‘Bruce Lee 

12.00 

12.00 

•AVAILABLE FOR THE ATARI 


HARDWARE: 


Amstrad mono computer 

229.00 

Amstrad colour computer 

329.00 



PROGRAMMERS 

£1,000 REWARD! 

We are offering a prize of £1 ,000 for the best arcade 
game program submitted to us by August 31 , 1984 
for either the 48K Spectrum, Commodore 64 or 
Amstrad. The program must be your own copyright 
which will be assigned to us on presentation of the 
award. The winner will also receive royalties based 
on our normal, escalating royalty package, for all 
copies of the program sold for any home computer. 
To enter, submit a copy of the program together with 
full operating instructions to: 

R M Summers 

STERLING SOFTWARE 

Garfield House 
86-88 Edgware Road 
London W2 2YW 

The decision ot the publishers will be flnsl end the name of the 
winner will be announced In the computer press. 

Sterling Software is a division of Sterling Publications Limited. 


Phone for software availability and 
top s/w lists. 


Gate Lodge 
Display Ltd 

one ofBritains leading 
manufacturers of pre-formed 
plastic point of sale. 


AVAILABLE NOW 

to compliment the computer and audio 
cassette. We offer a wide range of wall or 
free-standing display units, suitable for 
home or business use. Holding between 
15-60 cassettes. 

Prices from £5.50 + VAT 


Gate Lodge Displays Ltd 

12 Gate Lodge Close 


AUGUST 18 1984 


TIRED OF WAITING 
FOR PROGRAMS TO LOAD? 

AT LAST THE WAITING’S OVER! 

IKON COMPUTER PRODUCTS 
ANNOUNCE THEIR NEW 

J ULTRADRIVE t 

$ FOR THE BBC MICRO { 

J £79.95 inc VAT J 

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ 

The Ultradrive is a low cost high speed data storage device which provides all the facilities of 
an expensive disc system at a price only a little higher than an ordinary cassette recorder. 

It records on a mini cassette at 1 0 times the speed of an ordinary cassette recorder, and has a 
typical access time of 20 seconds. Each cassette has a minimum formatted capacity of 1 20K. 

SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE 

The Ultradrive costs ONLY £79.95 INCLUSIVE OF VAT. This includes all necessary 
interfaces, operating system, utility cassette and manual. NO HIDDEN EXTRAS! 

PAGE LEFT AT EOO 

The Ultradrive operating system has been designed to use none of the computer's RAM, 
so virtually all existing software will run successfully with it installed. 

LOCKSMITH 

The utilities cassette contains a program to transfer your cassette based software to the 
Ultradrive. 


SOPHISTICATED FILING SYSTEM 

The Ultradrive has been designed to respond to all BBC commands like LOAD, SAVE, 
CHAIN, OPENIN, OPENOUT, OPENUP, CLOSE#, PTR#, EXT#, PRINT#, INPUT#, 
BGET#, BPUT#, EOF#, ‘CAT, ‘LOAD, ‘SAVE, ‘RUN, ‘SPOOL, ‘EXEC, ‘OPT. Additional 
commands include * ULTRA, ‘ULTRAU, *SWAP, ‘RENAME, ‘DELETE, ‘KILL, ‘ACCESS, 
‘COMPACT, ‘INFO, ‘DRIVEand ‘LOCKSMITH. Newstarcommandscan beaddedtothe 
utilities cassette by the user as desired. 


RANDOM ACCESS 

The Ultradrive fully supports random access, and upto five files may be open at one time. 
It can search in both directions, thus minimising access time. 


INTERFACING AND COMPATIBILITY 

The Ultradrive connects to the BBC via the user port. Power is taken from the auxilliary 
power supply socket. The Ultradrive is compatible with sideways extension boards, 
second processors, silicon discs, disc drives, word processing systems and other ROM 
based software. 


“Also availableforthe DRAGON 32, NASCOM and TANDY computers. Coming soon for 
the ORIC and COMMODORE 64. Send S.A.E. for specifications. 

PRICES 

ULTRADRIVE £79.95 + £3.45 P&P 

MINICASSETTE £4.03 

BOX OF 6 CASSETTES £20.13 

CLEANING CASSETTE £4.60 

AVAILABLE FROM IKON COMPUTER PRODUCTS LTD.. KILN LAKE. LAUGHARNE, DYFED SA33 «QE 
TEL 099 421 515. ACCESS AND BARCLAYCARD ACCEPTED 


PCN AUGUST 1 11984 





lii'i'JiikHia'i'Jiiiiyi 


Lost in a maze of bits and bytes, trapped in a forest of errors, bugged by Basic? Whatever the problem, 
CALL on us. Our panel of experts is at your command. 


Write to: Routine Inquiries, 
Personal Computer News, 
VNU. Evelyn House. 62 
Oxford Street. London W1A 
2HG. 


Basic essentials 
of the perfect micro 


ADespite having had a Dra- 
W^gon 32 and a Commodore 64 
I am still searching for my 
perfect micro. This must have 
good graphics and sound, easily 
understood Basic for the 


Eventually I narrowed my list 
to the Elan, Yamaha YIS503 
and the new Amstrad CPC464, 
but I'm still in doubt about the 


extent of imported software/ 
peripherals for the Yamaha, the 


Could you tell me which of the 
three most fits my needs, and 
what the release datesareforthe 
Elan and the Yamaha. 

Paul Edwards, 

Camberwell, London. 

A Last things first. The 
greybeards among us will 
remember the catch phrase 'a 
new Elan will be launched on 
September 14' — to do the 
company justice, it didn’t de- 
fine ‘launch* and it didn’t spe- 
cify the year, but punters 
assumed it would be 1983. 

So far we haven't seen the 
Elan alias Flan alias Enterprise, 
so we can’t comment on it. 
What we can say is that, in the 
time since it was first mooted, 
the biggest Christmas micro 
boom Britain has ever seen has 
come and gone, and if any- 
body’s been waiting for it to 
arrive since last September 
they’ll have missed a lot of 
programming fun. Sure, there's 
a chance it will tum out to be a 
world-beater, but there’s also a 
chance that every IBM PC in 
the world will spontaneously 
start to grow long red hairs. 

We assume your interest in 
the Yamaha stems from its 
ability to take a music 
keyboard. If you’re determined 
to use your micro as a musical 
instrument as well as for prog- 
ramming then the Yamaha 
might well be for you , but if you 
just want a micro with good 
sound you might well do better 
elsewhere. 


The Yamaha’s MSX Basic is 
easy to understand and nice to 
use, the standard MSX sound 
specification will give you all 
the sound facilities you’re liable 
to need. The pricing of MSX 
machines, however, is liable to 
be a little higher than compara- 
ble machines currently on the 
market. As far as software is 
concerned, the Japanese stuff 
we’ve seen is good, but the main 
thrust is liable to be from UK 
companies. As they've got a 
good deal of 2180 experience 
there should be quite a lot of 
good stuff around. 

The Amstrad seems quite a 
bargain from what we’ve seen 
so far. The Basic is excellent, 
and its facilities are impressive 
for its price . Software is starting 
to come out for it right now. 

But when all’s said and done , 
what’s wrong with your 64? It 
has good sound , lots of software 
available, and while the 
peripherals aren't exactly state- 
of-the-art it has plenty of them. 
The only problem is the Basic, 
so why not just buy one of the 
extended Basics that are avail- 
able, such asTurbo Basic or BC 
Basic? Currently you seem to 
be looking at machines in the 
price range that your current 
machine is in, and with respect 
we’d say that was daft. 


PEEK at Spectrum's 
murky manual 

Q l’ve just about got to grips 
with Basic programming on 
my Spectrum, but I find chapter 
24 (on the memory) and chapter 
25 (on system variables) puz- 
zling. I ’d like to get to grips with 
machine code programming, 
but if I can’t grasp the subject 
from the manual, wouldn’t I 
just be wasting my money? 

Tim Brown, 

London SW3. 


A You’re not alone in being 
confused by that section of 
the manual. The problem here 
is at least partially that Sinclair 
has tried to cram a quart into a 
pint pot, so although there’s a 
good deal of useful information 
there, it’s not that easy to 
understand. 

One of the easiest ways to 
work out what’s going on inside 
the Spectrum's ROM is to take 
a look at the system variables. 
Try this: 


40 POKE 23692,255: GO TO 10 

What you’re doing here is 
PEEKing at the number in the 
memory locations from 23552 
to 23558, and presenting the 
result in tabular form. The 
poke 23692,255 is just a way of 
telling the Spectrum that it has 
another 255 lines to scroll 
before it asks you, ‘scroll?’ 

Your program should now be 
looping round the screen, so 
press a few keys and you'll see 
some of the peek values 
change , because the area you’re 
PEEKing is the one that deals 
with key presses. 

Now look at chapter 25 and 
you’ll see that the area from 
23552 is ‘used in reading the 
keyboard’. It’d be pointless 
going into the matter in more 
depth at this stage, as you really 
need to find out more before 
you go getting yourself involved 
with specific system variables. 
But with a bit of luck you may 
just have felt something click 

Now if you look at the 
memory map in chapter 24, 
you’ll see that the Spectrum’s 
memory locations arc laid out in 
order. Each of these locations 
can hold a number from 0-255, 
and whenever you tell the 
Spectrum anything, it changes 
the numbers in some of those 
locations. 


What’s holding up 
the MSX machines 


Q I have a ZX8I, and last 
Christmas I decided to wait 
until the MSX machines had 
arrived before deciding on 


grade to. At the time I thought it 
would be a matter of a few 


look like it ’ll be Christmas again 
before I see one, and I’m not 
even sure about the specifica- 
tions yet. 

For example, what do you do 


the peripherals like? Please 
help, as all this waiting is 
stunting my growth. 

D Smart, 

St IVes, Cornwall. 


A Be assured that the MSX 
machines should be in the 
shops this autumn . but don’t be 


too assured, because the 
Japanese companies seem to be 
having grave difficulties getting 
the UK versions into the 
country. 

The delays were initially 
clamed on the dock strike , but it 
may actually be more the case 
that some companies are having 
difficulty getting together the 
volume production they need. 
At least one company we know 
is expecting to receive small 
quantities of hand-built 
machines fairly soon, so the 
mass production ones clearly 
can’t be ready. 

The MSX companies have a 
couple of problems that do not 
affect UK manufacturers. First 
of all, they’ve done a sort of 
simultaneous launch deal with 
one another, so they have to 
wait for the slowest. It’ll also be 
difficult for them to be too 
flexible on price without acting 
in concert, and for the same 
reason they've had to be cagey 
on specifications. 

Their Japanese origin also 
doesn't help, as you can’t really 
fly in large quantities on con- 
sumer goods, so they have to 
come by sea. This means the 
companies have to get their 
Christmas stocks dead right. 

The Japanese element is also 
going to cause problems be- 
cause the pound's gone down, 
and the manufacturers will 
therefore get fewer Yen for 
every machine sold. As there 
are already doubts that they'll 
be able to match the pricing of 
the 64, and the guess for prices 
is around £250-£300, they're 
liable to be squeezed on mar- 

As regards peripherals, there 
is a story that MSXDOS went 
down well when it was shown in 
the US, but there's hardly been 
a sniff of them here, and very 
few details are available. The 
way that standard peripherals 
will be used is by running them 
out of the cartridge slot. This is 
not a misprint — it may seem 
odd, but as the machines have 
non-standard edge connectors, 
it's the only standard expansion 
slot that's available. 

Having said all that, the 
machines we've seen (Japanese 
market only) are pleasant to 
use, despite having some very 
odd Japanese styling quirks. If 
you can bear to wait a few more 
weeks, do so. but keep an eye 
open for what the rest of the 
market is doing. 


PCN AUGUST 1 1)984 


Another No.l from Ocearr 



CO FOR COLD! 



Ocean House 6 Central Street • Manchester M2 5NS Tel: 06 1 832 6633 


Ocean Software is available from all good software dealers and selected branches of: 

WOOLWOKTH W HSMITH , ‘Mb LASKYS Rumbelows and Spectrum Shops 





More hints and tips from our readers to make programming a little 


easier. 


You all know the feeling: after 
hours, days or even weeks spent 
particular problem you 


one of those late-night expedi- 
tions through the memory map 
you find some undiscovered 
feature. Well don’t keep it to 
yourself — send it here. We pay 
£5 for every tip and routine 
printed and £25 for a genuine 
Megawave. 

Send your contributions to: 
Microwaves, PCN, 62 Oxford 
Street, London Wl A 2HG. 


Spectrum copyright 
hint shared 

Anyone wishing to add a copy- 
right message to their Spectrum 
programs will be interested to 
know how to make a line which 
cannot be altered or deleted, 
but will run normally. 

To do this just enter the line 
you wish to protect as line 1 , and 
then type: 

POKE (PEEK 23635+ 250* PEEK 

This protects the program by 
making line 1 into line 0. 
Michael Batey, 

Birkenhead, Wirral 


• A little used instruction cpl, 
(2F hex), like the first tip, has 
the advantage over the more 
commonly seen xon 255 of 
being only one byte long. This 
reverses each bit in the ‘A’ 
register (eg 10101010 becomes 
01010101). 

• The following routine will 
allow a program using calls or 
jps to be relocatable. 

call ret ; call any ret in ROM 
dec sp ; decrease stack 
dec sp ; pointer twice 
pop hl ; HL=address of dec sp 

This works because a call 
puts the address of the next 
instruction on the stack. For 
example : call 0070 could be the 
first line on a Spectrum. 

Callum Gibson, 

Blairgowrie, Perthshire 


Z80 machine code 
triple bill 

Here are three tips for Z80 
machine code programmers. 

• Instead of the two byte 
instruction ld a, 0, the same 
result can be achieved by xor 
a . ( A F h ex ) . and this is one by te 


Give your Amstrad a 
change of character 

Amstrad owners will no doubt 
have been experimenting with 
user-definable characters with 
the Symbol after command, 
and may have created a whole 
new character set. 

One simple way of obtaining 
a new character set is to type 

CALL ABAOA. 

This provides an interesting 
effect by splitting each charac- 
ter down the middle and further 
rearranging it. 

If you wish to reset the 
computer from within a prog- 
ram. put call 0 where re- 
quired, and a complete hard 
reset will occur. 


Display over eight colours on the Oric 

The Microwaves section in issue 62 had a tip to allow more than 
eight colours to be displayed on the Oric screen. The routine 
took some time to run and displayed only one colour at a time , so 
I have written a program which runs in a comparatively short 
length of time and displays all the new colours in a grid on the 


0 HIRES 

1 FOR G-l TO 7 

2 CURSET 0*30-1 ,£ 

3 CURSET 0,0*23-1 

4 NEXT O 

10 FOR Y-0 TO 7 
20 FOR X-0 TO 7 
30 CURSET X*30,Y* 
40 FOR C»0 TO 11 
30 FILL 1,1,X*16 
60 NEXT C,X,Y 


Using Easyscript and 1520 plotter 

You can use the Commodore 1520 plotter with Easyscript, and 
without all the open statements, using this program. 

When run, the program asks for the number of columns to be 
used, and sets the plotter to lower case mode and loads Easy- 

To obtain a hard copy, the printer option should be 0 and the 
following sequence of keys should be pressed: 

‘fl,0,D,0,6 return, P’. 

1000 REM XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXAA 

1010 REM xxx EASY SCRIPT SET UP xxx 
1020 REM xxx BY MATTHEW DESMOND xxx 
1030 REM xxx USE WITH 1S20 PLOTTER xxx 
1040 REM xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
1050 REM xxx WHEN COPY IS NEEDED *xx 
1060 REM xxx TYPE FI ,0.0,6 CRETJ ,P XXX 
1070 REM xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
1080 PRINT "l' ; 

1090 PRINT'HOUI MANY COLS ?Q_" 

1100 PRINT'D Se- 
ll 10 PR I NT "2 5 40 
1120 PR I NT "3 3 20" 

1130 PRINT"4 3 10" 

1140 GETA*: IFAi= "THENU40 

1150 A=UALCA*3 

1160 IFA<10RA>4THEN1 140 

1 170 0PEN3 .6,3: PRINT*3 . A-l : CL0SE3 

1180 0PEN1 ,8.1S:PRINT«1 . T':CL0SE1 

1190 0PEN6 , 6 , 6 : PR I NT«6 , 1 : CL0SE6 

1200 PRINT” INSERT EASY SCRIPT DISK" 

1210 PRINT'QPRESS A KEY WHEN DONE" 

1220 POKE 198.0 
1230 GETA*: I FA* =•" THEN 1230 
1240 CLR: LOAD' 0: X" .8 . 1 
Matthew Desmond, 

Chelmsford, Essex 


Graphics and text on TV with Dragon 32 


i improved version. 

Type in the following routine , save it on cassette and then run 
it. You can type in graphics commands in direct mode and see 
them being carried out. 

The program includes a check sum to ensure the data 
statements are entered correctly. 

1 REM MIXED TEXT AND ORAHICS 

2 REM DRAGON 32 

3 REM BY F R ELL AH I 1984 
3 CLEAR 400,32700 

6 PMODE4 ! PCLS 
10 L-3270l:C*0 


IF C < >8494 THEN PRINT'YOU h 
TYPING ERROR IN THE DA- 
POKE 361,0 : POKE 269, 

DATA 73, 01, 69, 7F , 01, 6 

0 DATA 22,B7,FF,C3,B7,F 


9 DATA 4F,1F,01, 7E, 9D, 
9 DATA 13, B7 , FF , 22 , B7 , 
9 DATA FF,C4,B7,FF,C6, 


STATEMENTS": STOP 


PCN AUGUST 11 1984 


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The QL is bringing a breath of fresh air to user groups, as Harriet Arnold found out. 


New micros, new horizons . . . 


The QL has been selected by a 
TRS-80 group as the tonic to 
revive its flagging fortunes. 
Sinclair’s business micro is par- 
ticularly suited to the group said 
chairman Dick Mackie since 
the machines have certain fea- 
tures in common: the Tandy 
Model 1 and QL are ’both very 
basic systems, cheap to start off 
with so that, as with the 
Model 1, add-ons will be the 
most important thing'. 

Mr Mackie seems to welcome 
the QL’s bad points along with 
the good. 

The BBC was the rival con- 
tender but the Edinburgh- 
based group decided that mov- 
ing into fresh fields demanded 
something brand new. 

They went for something so 
utterly new that no QL had felt 
their fingertips when they in- 
corporated the twoextra initials 
into the group's name, but one 
member has now received a 
dongle-free QL which has been 
passed around. 

Details from Dick Mackie, 
Edinburgh 031-447 6651. 



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Listing 3 


• ' ' 

Simon Williams has been on the track of Locomotive Basic, a new version for the Amstrad. 


Basic comparison 


20 M0DE4 

30 FOR NX-1 TO 10 
40 XX— RND< 1279) 

30 TX-RND< 1000) -300 
60 IF TX<0 GOTO 120 
70 YX-0 
80 REPEAT 

90 MOVE XX, YX: DRAW XX*64,YX 
100 YX— YX* 4 
110 UNTIL YX>TX 
120 NEXT 


20 MODE 1 
30 FOR NX-1 TO 10 
40 XX-RNDX640 
30 TX—RNDX 80 0-480 

70 WHILE TX>0 AND YX<TX 
80 MOVE XX.YXiDRAW XX+32.YX 
90 YX-YX+2 
100 WEND 
110 NEXT 


20 MODE 2 

30 FOR NX-0 TO 13 

40 VDU 26 

50 COLOUR 128+NX i CLS 
60 VDU 28,3,24,16,8 
70 COLOUR 143-NX : CLS 
80 A-GET 
90 NEXT 


T he new Amstrad CPC 464 64K colour 
computer has received considerable 
coverage in the press (see PCN issue 
66 for review) and has been generally 
greeted with approval for putting together 
lot of the best features of other micros, 
lut in addition the operating system and 
resident Basic offer many features pre- 
viously unavailable to the programmer 
orking in a high level language. 

The Basic included with the Amstrad 
as written by a firm called Locomotive, 
and has much in common with BBC Basic. 

therefore worth comparing the two. 
There are three main sections of the 
language that are interesting. 

Structures 

One criticism that has been levelled against 


Locomotive Basic is that it hasn’t followed 
the lead that Acorn set and Sinclair 
followed on the QL in providing proper 
control structures. These are seen as a way 
to exclude the infamous ooto statement. 
But the main area in which Locomotive 
Basic falls down is in the omission of 
multi-line procedures or functions with the 
facility to pass local variables. 

Single line functions are allowed, and 
these are reminiscent of functions offered 
in some of the really early versions of 
Microsoft Basic. 

There is also no repeat . . . until loop 
structure, but instead the while . . . wend 
loop is included. This is rather more useful 
than the repeat . . . until as the test for 
executing the loop is performed at the start 
of the loop. With a repeat . . . until, the 


loop must be executed at least once. 

This may seem rather an esoteric 
distinction, but Listings 1 and 2 may serve 
to illustrate the difference. Listing 2 is the. 
Locomotive version. 

The if . . . then . . . else statement is 
fully supported, which means that the 
whole structure can be nested. In BBC 
Basic: 

20 IF A - I THEN IF B — I THEN IF C- 1 THEN 

PRINT" all=i” else print” a and B=l” 
ELSE PRINT” A- 1” 

will evaluate incorrectly if A<> 1 Of B<> 1 
because the else statement will always 
refer to the first if clause in the statement. 
Locomotive Basic has no trouble in sorting 
these things out. 

There are several useful features of 
Locomotive Basic which will make life 


PCN august u i 






AMSTRAD BASIC 


easier for the programmer. Several of 
these facilities have had to be provided by 
extra 'toolkit' programs on the Beeb. Of 
particular note are fre which will return 
the amount of free space left in memory 
(and may be used to force ‘garbage 
collection'), cont which will continue 
execution of a program after it has been 
temporarily halted, and renum which can 
be used to renumber a whole program or, 
more importantly, only a section of it. 

chain merge may be used to combine 
two or more programs together from tape . 
This is a useful feature if you want to keep a 
set of standard subroutines for use in your 
programs. Integer and string variables may 
either be defined by appending a % or $ to 
the variable name , or by defining groups of 
variables using the defint or defstr 
statements. These commands hark back to 


older versions of Basic, such as that used on 
the TRS-80, so it is surprising that Acorn 
didn't consider them important enough to 
include on the BBC. 

Locomotive has also added several 
commands new to Basic. The erase 
command will release space used by an 
array if it is no longer required in the 
program, lower! and upperS will 
convert strings of mixed characters to 
either lower or upper case, and max and 
min will return the maximum or minimum 
values from a list of numbers or numeric 
variables. Any key on the keyboard may be 
redefined using the key DEFstatement and 
the escape key may be easily trapped using 
the on break gosub construction. 

There are a few features of BBC Basic 
which are not available or are more 
awkward to use on the Amstrad. Among 


these are the lack of a get statement 
(although inkey$ is supported), the tab 
function which may only take the horizon- 
tal coordinate and prints the appropriate 
number of spaces on the screen, and the 
fussiness of the interpreter in requiring 
spaces between each keyword and vari- 
able. 


Graphics 

When it comes to graphics commands. 
Locomotive Basic seems to have been 
modelled more closely on Spectrum lines 
than on Acorn's rather complex way of 
doing things. Simple functions such as 
setting foreground, background and bor- 
der colours are achieved using pen, paper 
and border commands rather than a 
number of parameters within a gcol 
statement . The swapping of colours within 


20 ► 


10 REM The Amstrad equivalent o-f the demo in listing 3 

20 MODE 0 

30 FOR NX=0 TO 15 

40 WINDOW 1,20,1,25 

50 PAPER NX: CLS 

60 WINDOW 4,17,8,18 

70 PAPER 15-NXsCLS 

80 IF INKEY**" " GOTO 80 

90 NEXT 


10 REM Keeping the sound queue -fed on the BBC micro. Try making 
line 70 just PROCsound to see why the ADUAL statement is necessary. 
20 MODE 2 
30 REPEAT 

40 FOR YX-0 TO 1023 STEP 8 
50 GCOL0 , YX/8 
60 MOUE0.YX: DRAW 1 279, YX 
70 IF ADUALC -6) >0 PROCsound 
80 NEXT 
90 CLS 

100 UNTIL FALSE 
110 DEF PROCsound 
120 READ FA 

130 IF FX=0 RESTORE tENDPROC 
140 SOUND 1 ,-15, FX , 20 
150 ENDPROC 

160 DATA 53,61,69,73,81,89,97, 101,0 


10 REM An equivalent program on the Amstrad CPC 464 
20 MODE 0 
30 WHILE -1 

40 FOR YX-0 TO 400 STEP 4 
50 MOUE 0,Y X: DRAW 640 , YX , < YX/4) MOD 16 
60 ON SQ< 1) GOSUB 100 
70 NEXT 
80 CLS 
90 WEND 
100 READ FX 

110 IF FX=0 THEN RESTORE s RETURN 
120 SOUND 1,FX, 100,7 
130 RETURN 

140 DATA 478,426,379,358,319,284,253,239,0 


PCN AUGUST II I 


EuSEEEEEIS 

ately and allowed text and graphics to be 
freely mixed on the same screen. The 
Amstrad extends this ability by providing 
up to eight text windows plus a single 
graphics one. These are defined with the 
window command and text may be written 
to any window using window swap. User 
defined characters may be set up using the 
symbol keyword, after having first de- 
fined how many UDC’s are to be used with 
the symbol after command. 


the palette (there are 27 available on the 
Amstrad, with a maximum of 16 selectable 
at any one time) is effected by the ink 
command. Any two colours may be made 
to flash alternatively as one colour and the 
flashing rate is selected with speed ink. 

All in all, colour control is a lot more 
human under Locomotive Basic. Listings3 
and 4 give a comparison of the colour 
commands on the two machines. 

The number of plotting options on the 
Amstrad isn't as large as on the Beeb. and a 
notable ommission is any form of fill 
routine. The smaller number of options 
does allow each to be covered by a separate 
command, however. Thus move, plot 
and draw govern absolute movement 
while mover, plotr and drawr do the 
same for relative plotting. The colour of 
the drawn line can be specified as a third 
parameter in the draw command. 

The graphics and text cursors may be 
tied together with the tag command and 
separated again using tacoff, and the ink 
colour at a specified point is obtained using 
test x,y. The current positions of the text 
and graphics cursors are returned by the 
hpos, vpos and xpos, ypos commands 
respectively. 

The BBC micro was quite revolutionary 
in providing separate text and graphics 
'windows' which could be defined separ- 


One of the key features of Locomotive 
Basic is its ability to handle Z80 processor 
interrupts directly. What this means is that 
you can write programs that appear to 
execute simultaneously as each will take a 
share of the processors time at the machine 
code level. One of the uses of this feature 
with a home micro might be the running of 
music routines in the background to a 
games program. The Basic commands 
which handle this feature are after and 
every, which will service a subroutine 
either once or continuously at a predefined 
frequency. 

If you don’t want to run to the 
complications of using interrupt-driven 
routines, however. Locomotive Basic can 
still help to service a sound subroutine with 
the on so gosub clause. This construction 


■■■HM 

will check one of the three sound channels 
and jump to a subroutine if there is space in 
the sound queue for that channel to add 
extra notes. Listings 5 and 6 demonstrate 
how to use this feature, and the BBC 
equivalent using the adval statement. 

The three sound channels simulate a 
stereo effect by running into different parts 
of the stereo image, but the sound 
statement itself is fairly complex and needs 
considerable study to get the best from it. 
The sounds may be modified by either or 
both of two envelopes, governing tone and 
volume. This is virtually equivalent to 
splitting the envelope command on the 
BBC micro in two. It is perhaps a little 
easier to understand because of this. 

Conclusion 

The authors of Locomotive Basic have 
gone out of their way to cater for as many 
different users of the Amstrad machine as 
possible. The first time user should find 
that the number of specific commands with 
sensible names make the machine easy to 
use. Those graduating from other 
machines will notice very little is missing 
from this implementation of Basic (except 
the use of procedures and some other 
structured constructs) and will be pleased 
with the extra facilities designed to make 
life easy for the programmer. 


Locomotive that stops and starts 


T he most unusual feature of Locomotive 
Basic is its ability to handle interrupts 
directly from Basic. The command every 
gives access to four interrupt timers, 
allowing a program to jump to a subroutine 
at a set interval. This may sound amazing, 
but it's difficult to think of any real use for it. 
However, what it does do is change the 
way you design your programs. 

The example program shows three 
bouncing balls, each driven by the inter- 
rupts. Lines 50 to 70 set up the interrupts, 
line 50 sets the program to jump to the 
subroutine after 4 counts (of 'Ao second 
each) on timer 0. The bouncing balls are 
shown by the digits 0, 1 and 2, to show 
which timer is being used. 

The interrupts must be handled careful- 
ly. Note that each subroutine to move the 
characters begins with the command di, 
disable interrupts, and ends with ei. enable 
interrupts. This has to be done because an 
every, set to a given timer at a faster rate 
than another, may interrupt another inter- 


rupt-driven routine (if you see what I 
mean). 

When an interrupt occurs, whatever is 
happening at the time is suspended' . So if 
you use one command that is dependent 
on another, eg locate c,r:print B2$;, you 
may find that the interrupt occurs between 
the two statements. In this example, if the 
next statement jumped to by the interrupt is 
a print, you'll find things appearing in odd 
places on the screen. 

Another factor you have to take into 
account is that if you set all the timers to 
interrupt at fast rates, say every 'Ao sec, 
then only one will get a look in. Similarly, if 
the subroutine set for a given timer takes a 
long time (and uses di), then any other 
every command may never get executed. 

You could write the sample program in 
'normal' Basic, by jumping to the sub- 
routine in sequence, but the interrupts 
provide an easy and simple solution. They 
also give you a good grounding in how 
interrupts work, without having to get your 


hands dirty messing around in machine 
code. 

The BBC also has the ability to handle 
interrupts, but not from Basic. On the BBC 
they are known as events and to use them 
you must redirect vectors and make use of 
the built-in assembler This is much harder 
to do but is probably more useful. 

The only real use for interrupts is for 
scanning keyboards, ports, etc or moving 
sprites round the screen But such proces- 
ses are better handled with machine code 
routines because of their superior speed. 

Locomotive Basic, as implemented on 
the Amstrad. is probably easier to learn 
and use than BBC Basic. Things like 
setting ink, paper and border colours and 
so on are all accessed from Basic words 
rather than the BBC's obscure vou and • fx 
commands. However, some if its unusual 
features, while they may encourage you to 
take a more structured approach to 
programming, may be of limited practical 
value but lots of fun. 


10 CLS 

20 X0« id: Y0- 10: x l =X0: Y1-Y0: X2-X0: Y2=Y0 
30 DX0«1 : DY0-1 : bxi-»-i:byi=i :BX2-*i :b v 2»- 1 

40 b0*--0*:bi*--i ":s2*=--2- 

30 EVERY 4,0 GOSL'B 90 
60 EVERY 3,2 G03UB 130 
20 EVERY 3,3 GCOUB 210 
90 GOTO 90 

90 DT : I..OCATE X0, Y0 : PRINT ■ "I 

100 X0-X0+BX0: Y0-Y0*BY0 

110 IF X0539 OR X0< 2 THEN BY0-=-BX0 

120 IF Y0>22 OR Y0<2 THEM DY0’--*5Y0 

130 LOCATE X0, Y0: “PINT B0*i 


El: RETURN 

bi:locate XI , Y1 ^RTN’-- "I 
yi*-xi*rxi : Yi-Yi+BYi 
IF XI >39 OR XI <2 THEM BXl*--rV. 
IF Y 1 >22 OR YlfT THEN DY1«- -BY! 
LOCATE VI, Yl: PRINT B’»: 

EI : RETURN 

dt:locate v2,y2:print ■ •: 

X2=X2< BXT: Y2«Y2 + BY2 
IF X2>39 OR X2'2 ’■•IEN 3X2--BX2 
IF Y2>22 PR Y2tO THEN BY2=-BY2 
LOCATE V2, Y2: D RINT B2*t 
EI : RETURN 


PCN AUGUST 11 1 




A maxim which eloquently describes the Brother RS-232C interface, the HR-5 is compatible with BBC, 
J c Spectrum, Oric, Dragon, Atari and most other home 

' ipular software 

7 or mains operated 
has a starting price 


spectrum, cmc 

Less than a foot across, it’s nonetheless loaded with computers and popi 
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The little printer that’s low on decibels. HR-5 weighs less than 4 lbs, and 1 
There’s one thing the HR-5 won’t give you. of only £159.95 (inc VAT). 

Earache 


Which is reallv something to shout about 


For the annoying ‘clickety clack" many printers p 
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Quiedy efficient, it delivers high definition 
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Text or gra phics with ease. 

The HR-5 also has something of an artistic bent | 
Being capable of producing uni-directional 
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text What’s more it will hone down characters into 
a condensed face, or extend them for added emphasis. 

At home with home computers. 

Incorporating either a Centronics parallel or 


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e 


A pple Computer, the bastion of micro I 
traditionalism, has finally jumped on I 
the bandwagon and gone portable. I 
The lie is probably the final stage in the I 
development of the Apple 11 series, but it I 
also represents a major rethink in Apple 

Although the keyboard will be very 
familiar to anyone who has used the lie, 
that is where the similarity ends. Every- 
thing on the lie is inside the box and sealed 
off — no slots for add-on boards and 
therefore no pop-off lid. This is an Apple 
for people who want an off-the-shelf 
micro, not wire merchants. The expanda- 
bility of the rest of the II series is gone. Inits 
place is a set of specialised chips which 
provide a fixed, but quite flexible, set of 
I/O facilities. 

Presentation 

Being aimed at a much less technically- 
minded buyer, the image of the Apple has 
undergone a subtle revamp. Externally, 
it's much more ‘eighties' , and put next to a 
'full-sized' Apple, makes the latter look 
rather old-fashioned. In keeping with 
modern thinking, many of the specialised 
details, such as connectors, are identified 


with icons which are intended to eliminate 
linguistic confusion. 

In fact, the noticablc thing about the lie 
is the relative unobtrusivenessof the actual 
technology, which is carried over to the 

Documentation 

One of Apple's main selling-points has 
always been the quality of the documenta- 

owners could, if they so wished, not only 
understand every facet of the machine, hul 
expand its capacities and even fix it if it 

This attitude to the user has changed 
completely. The manuals, with names like 
'Apple Presents the Apple lie An 

people who don't want to know how the 


computer operates, just how they can 
make it work for them . The emphasis is on 
fun. and to enhance the enjoyment the 
manuals are super glossy with plenty of 
smiling faces in glorious tcchnicolour. 

Don 't get me wrong, the manuals are still 
very good and cover all the necessary areas 
in detail. In particular, they are clearly 
written with a pleasant style. 


Setting it up takes about three minutes 
from getting in the door. All the cables 
have plugs on and you simply can’t go 
wrong. Should you have any doubts at all. 
’Setting up your Apple lie’ is virtually a 
fool-proof Noddy's guide. 

The job of instructing inexperienced 
users is handled by the machine, rather 


AUGUST 1 1 IVK4 





which accompany the lie have some 
training sections. Any inexperienced pur- 
chaser should be able to achieve a 
satisfactory fluency without support — a 
major accomplishment by Apple. 

Construction 

Packed . . . tight — that’s how it’s 
constructed. Not surprising, when you 
consider that it has most of a well expanded 
Apple He inside it, as well as a disk drive. 

You aren't supposed to look inside, so 
don't, but I can tell you from having seen 
one in pieces at its launch that the main 
board has a row of 16 6164 RAM-chipson 
one edge, for 2 x 64K, a squad of big fat 
40-pin packages with custom VLSI chips 
inside, and not a lot else. Directly above 
the board is the half-height disk drive and 
the keyboard, and the various connectors 


stick out of the back. 

Each I/O port is different , so you can't do 
anything silly like sticking 240V into the 
joystick port. I was particularly impressed 
with the quality of the sockets, which are 
firmly and safely connected by captive 
bolts. 

One thing which didn't impress me at all 
was the discovery that all Apple lies 
produce an American NTSC TV-signal 
(Never Twice Same Colour) which has the 
notable feature of not producing any 
colour whatsoever on anything but US 
standard TVs and monitors. You get a 
Modulator to convert it for PAL instead. 
This is a silly little box that plugs in the 
back , interferes with the handle and gives a 
monochrome picture. 

You’ll have to wait until August for the 
colour modulator, but it will be supplied at 


no extra cost. 

Having a handle on a computer doesn't 
necessarily mean that it’s robust enough to 
carry around, even if it's light enough, but 
this one stood up very well to the rigours of 
frequent transportation. 

The keyboard is always a major aspect of 
any computer, even those with mice, and 
though the keyboard initially resembles 
the lie's it has an unfamiliar clicky action. 
This is strongly reminiscent of the Big Blue 
Machine, but it's not unpleasant. Apple 
makes much of the keyboard being 
full-sized, unlike many other portables. 

Just above the keyboard are a series of 
diagonal slants. The two on the left are 
switches which select 80/40 column display 
and keyboard-layout. They’re set deeply 
so they don’t get flipped accidentally. A 
long fingernail will doit, but not easily. The 
right-hand pair of slants are indicator- 
lights for disk drive activity and power on 
— red and green respectively. Reset is on 
the top-left side, and requires the simul- 
taneous depression of the Control key to 
work, as usual. 

Part of the reason for the compactness of 
the lie is because Apple left out the Power 
Supply, providing it instead as a remark- 


PCN AUGUST111 




is occupied by one of the super serial 
interfaces, which in this case is used for the 
printer. Apple has recently decided that 
printers are serial, a point which I would 
argue. Serial I/O can be a very useful 
technique, but when applied to printers it 
becomes a positive liability. It's slow, and 
printers are slow enough in all conscience. 
The consequences of a dropped or spurious 
bit can be catastrophic, resulting in pages 
of gibberish. Parallel printers, on the other 
hand, would justgarble the letter leaving 
the rest unharmed. 

It’sa shame Apple didn't think of putting 
a 6522 VIA in, allowing for both parallel 
and serial I/O and more besides. Slot 2 is 
another super serial, this time for com- 
munications (modems and stuff). 

These two ACIA-driven ports come up 
with default configurations of 9600 baud, 
eight data, no parity and two stop bits for 
no. 1 and 300 baud, seven data, no parity 
and one stop bit for no. 2. These settings 
have been chosen so that serial port 1 is 
configured for an Apple Imagewriter 
printer, and serial port 2 for an Apple 
Modem, but they can be changed to 
whatever is appropriate for your device. 

The simplest way is to use the Universal 
Utilities Disk provided with the machine to 
set a new PIN (Peripheral Identification 
Number). The PIN is in fact a code which 
represents the values required to operate a 
device correctly, but if necessary you can 
store new values in the 'screen-holes’, 
which are small unused areas at the sides of 
the text page 1 screen area, and rc-initialise 


ably solid little lump, with some impress- 
ively-long cables, which sits on the floor 
somewhere between the machine and the 
plug. It makes sure you can't ignore it by 
buzzing penetratingly — no amount of 
thumping it seemed to discourage it. 

Features 

In terms that an established Apple user can 
relate to, the He contains one complete 
64K Apple II plus the circuitry to provide 
the functions of two Super Serial cards, an 
expanded (with 64K) 80-column card, a 
Mouse card and a disk drive controller . Not 
to mention a disk drive to give the 
controller something to do. None of these , 
except of course the disk drive, exist as 
individuals; in fact, most of the functions 
are handled by the platoon of custom VLSI 

The relative wealth of features provided 
is fairly obvious from the array of sockets 
and connectors on the back panel, which 
provide the input and output paths. The 
changes here are that the Apple lie only 
supports two games paddles, not four, and 
there’s no tape I/O at all. You may say that 
no-one ever uses the tape nowadays, but 
having, on odd occasions, found myself 
with a blown DOS and the only data set in 
memory. I’ve used tape as a last resort. 

Though there are no actual slots as such 
in the lie, the organisation of all Apple II 
series machines demands that everything 
which isn't plain memory must reside in a 
fixed place in the address-map, which lies 
between SCOOOand SCFFF. Additionally, 
this is subdivided into eight pages of 
hardware locations, which in a Apple II, 
11+ or He are the actual slots, and a 
common block of eight pages which is used 
for ROM drivers. This means that only one 
driver can be active at once. 

The result is that each of the 
facilities of the lie is associated with a slot 
number for the purposes of control. Slot 1 


Slot 3 is the 80-column display with 
extended memory as on the Apple He , but 
it is subtly different in th at the I/O ROM 
area from SC800 to SCFFF is always 
mapped to slot 3. This is because there 
aren’t any other slots, so no other ROMs. 

Another difference which isn't im- 
mediately obvious is that the character set 
available when the firmware is active has 
been changed, mostly to support Slot 4 
which is the mouse interface. The altera- 
tions have been in the area from ASCII 64 
to 95, which are no longer inverse upper 
case but a set of icons for using a mouse in 
Text mode. 

Apple proposes to make heavy use of 
mice in future, but to always use high- 
resolution graphics screens to provide 
suitable pointersand soon would prove too 
restrictive. The solution is the new charac- 
ter generator, which will also be available 
to He owners. Whether II and 11+ owners 
will also get upgrades is another question. 

Slot 6 is the disk interface , and slot 7 only 
exists as a way of being able to boot from an 
external disk drive under ProDOS. Slot 5 
just vanished, and any reference to it will 
give a 'No device connected’ error under 
ProDOS, and bounce you straight back 
again under DOS. 

The total absence of slots and lack of an 
externally accessible bus means that_ 


mi 

llll 

nil 


PCN PRO-TEST I 

EEman 



£1,065 inc VAT 

65C02 (CMOS version of 6502) 

16K 

128K 

80 x 24, 560 x 192 graphics, 16 colour 
61-key, full travel keyboard 

mouse, joystick, modem and serial printer ports, TV and 
RGB monitor, external disk drive 
Applesfoft Basic, ProDOS 

Monitor (£161), external disk (£264), mouse including Mouse 
Paint (£80) 

Apple Computer (UK), 0442 60244 


there’s no expandability in the lie — no 
fancy synthesisers, bit-pads, graphics 
cards, A/D and D/A cards or custom 
interfaces. And no subsidiary/slave/para- 
llel processors either, which means no 
Accelerators and, in particular, no Z80s. 

Compatibility 

Apple claims that the lie is able to run most 
software written for other II series models. 
True enough, but the same claim was made 
for the He, and the whole truth was that 
most significant programs had to be 
modified before they'd work at all reliably. 
All but the most trivial needed some 
modification if they were to make effective 
use of the new machine. 

The same applies here. You can get the 
original Integer Basic Star Trek to run on a 
lie, but it doesn't use a tenth of the 
machine. The same program written in 
65002 machine-code using the extended 
RAM and double high-resolution with disk 


PCN PRO TEST 

1 ’/ ; : ■ 

based overlays would be a different thing 
entirely. 

The newer programs, being written with 
Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines in 
mind, have more uniformity and are thus 
quicker to learn and easier to remember at 
a later date. This is particularly important 
in view of the market at which the lie is 
aimed. Most of the older programs and 
virtually all CP/M software doesn’t fit with 
Apple’s newly adopted philosophy. 

This philosophy is enunciated in the 
Human Interface Guidelines, which Apple 
proposes should form a major part of the 


design brief for all programs. It’s also 
exemplified by the (relatively few) Pro- 
DOS programs currently available, which 
consist of MousePaint, Apple Works and 
the various ProDOS utilities. The impor- 
tant thing about these is that they have 
common details, such as how the editing 
works for user-input and where messages 
go, how menus work and so on. This should 
greatly reduce the likelihood of operator 
errors. 

For example: when requesting input the 
back-arrow can be either destructive, 
actually deleting the letters as it moves, or 
non-destructive, in which case it simply 
moves the cursor backwards. Taking the 
cursor back to the middle of the input and 
over-typing will change the letter under the 
cursor, and pressing Return will accept the 
whole entry, no matter where the cursor is. 
It won’t chop off the end, which may sound 
wrong but which makes more sense to the 
non-expert user. Additionally, with a 
non-destructive back-arrow Control-I will 
insert a space under the cursor and 
Control-R will remove the letter under the 
cursor, pulling the end of the line left to 
compensate. 

Any other keypress will be accepted if 
it’s a valid character, but if not the machine 
will give a small ’beep' but nothing 
unexpected will happen. 

There’s more to it than that, though. The 
Window Manager will extend the system to 
include windows very much like those on 
Lisa and Macintosh, though it'll never have 
the same power simply because the 6502, 
even extended, can’t possibly match a 
68000. 

However, taken together, ProDOS and 
the rest of the system software which is 
promised will make considerably better 
use of an 8-bit processor than is common, 
and programs which call these routines and 
are written with due attention to the 
Guidelines will be a great improvement 
over most current software. 

In other words, pre-Apple He software 
will run, mostly, and much of the Apple He 
software will run properly. But neither will 
make any use of the mouse and any 
programs which store inverse upper case 
directly into memory have a good chance of 
producing displays with interesting but 
illegible sequences of icons. The Apple lie 
(and enhanced Apple He’s) deserve, and 
will eventually get, specially-written soft- 
ware for which it will be well worth the 


Verdict 

Compared with the rest of the market, the 
Apple lie is a good buy. It may not be as 
cheap as some, but it is a complete system , 
with all the bits needed, in one convenient 
box. Like a disk drive with some reason- 
able speed. It doesn’t try to blind with 
technicalities, and though it bears scam 
resemblance to Wozniak’soriginal, it’sstill 
a respectable and useful machine with a 
solid lineage. 

I want one, even if it’s only to use as a 
note-book cum calculator cum filer cum 
typewriter which is it’s main purpose and 
one which it would perform well for a good 
many years to come. 


PCN AUGUSTll 1984 


Now available — 

INTERFACING & CONTROL 
ON THE BBC MICRO 

How to control equipment outside 
the micro: 

★ send and receive digital 
information 

★ interface the micro to various 
transducers 

★ control DC motors 

The course uses a special Control 
Kit, available separately. 

Book £9.95 available from 

bookshops or direct from NEC. 

Cassette Pack £13,80, 

Control Kit £174.80 

Further details ot the course and the kit from: 
National Extension College 
Ref.BB. 

18 Brooklands Avenue. Cambridge CB2 2HN 


COMPUCLUB 

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APRICOT Optional 12m MONITOR 1220.00 

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DRAGON 


CONTACT 


T he RS232 input/output interface from 
Steve's Electronics is an expansion 
system that allows the Dragon to 
communicate with any device which also 
supports a serial port, eg modems, other 
computers, EPROM programmers etc. In 
addition, the unit comes complete with a 
40-way connector that allows direct access 
to a built-in 6522 VIA (Versatile Interface 
Adaptor) chip. A set of additional Basic 
commands is also included that gives full 
control over both of these devices. 


The interface plugs into the Dragon's 
cartridge port. When the machine is 
switched back on, a prompt appears below 
the normal copyright notice to let you 
know you have access to the 13 extra Basic 
commands. With those the RS232 and the 
user port can be programmed easily 
without the usual PEEKing and poKEing 
about in the Dragon's memory. 

The unit is hardware compatible with 
the Tandy CoCo (6809E). but not with its 
software due to the different ROM 
structures of the two machines. However, 
PEEKing and poKEing on the CoCo should 
allow the benefits of this device to be 
available to Tandy owners as well. 

In use 

The RS232 section of the interface was 
tested by hooking it up to a BBC micro via 
the serial port. This connection was made 
easier to handle with the aid of the DIL 
switch pack, which eliminated hours of 
soldering since the various lines could be 
cross-connected. The connection on the 
I/O port for RS232 is the standard 25 way D 
connector. 

Once the physical connections had been 
made, it was only a two minute job — 




This Dragon RS232 interface impressed Hywel Francis. 

user defined circuits using the very versa- 
tile 6522 VIA chip. A complete set of 
commands has been added to the Basic 
interpreter to make the best use of the 


program the Dragon and the BBC to 
enable them to transfer information. First 
the baud rate was set for both machines (in 
the test I used the highest speed of 19,200 
baud) and then both machines were placed 
into terminal mode. With the BBC this 
involved a series of FX commands, on the 
Dragon simply using the term command 
did the job. 






The IOC and RS232 ports arc at ri«M an 

I soon discovered that the ss 
slo ad commands can be used to download 
whole programs across the link. This 
means two Dragons can be in touch via 
modems and the telephone network giving 
full and easy communication. 

The method used to transfer the binary 
data down the RS232 is the Intel Intellec 
Translation Format. This format is an 
industry standard and has a data control 
structure that includes the load addresses 
with each data block. It also has the ability 
to have a number of arbitrary length data 
blocks within one file, and as there arc no 
dedicated control codes, all characters are 
viewable as standard ASCII characters. 

The IDC (Insulation displacement con- 
nector) on the top of the unit brings out 40 
signals which are split into 2 groups: the 
6522 I/O lines and the 6809E system bus. 
This I/O section is the main difference 
between a straight RS232 interface and this 
unit. It will interface the Dragon to any 


19,200. 

INBYTE reads the RS232 or VIA chip and ri 
INPORT reads in the current 8 bit value from VIA port A or B. 

OUTPORT configures the VIA port to output. 

RS2320N echoes characters from the keyboard down the RS232 link. 
RS2320FF terminates RS2320N. 

SLOAD downloads a Basic program from another Dragon via the RS232. 
SSAVE sends a Basic program down the RS232 to another Dragon. 
SLOADM downloads binary data from either another computer or an EPROM 
programmer. 

SSAVEM transmits binary data. 

SPO A$ dispatches the specified string down the RS232 link. 

TERM turns the Dragon into a terminal. 

VIA allows any of the VIA registers to be written to. 


VIA. 

Documentation 

The documentation supplied with the 
review model was excellent. It assumes no 
prior knowledge and was easy to follow. It 
contains sample circuits and programs to 
start you on your way when connecting the 
Dragon to the outside world. 

However, the manual was not included 
in the price of the I/O box — it costs an 
extra £4.50. If you wish to get the most out 
of this unit then the manual and a copy of 
the 6522 data sheet are a must. It is a pity 
that the latter was not included in the 
manual. 

Verdict 

RS232 interfaces are not new for the 
Dragon 32 but in this case, considering the 
capabilities of the I/O section, it could 
almost be said that you are getting the 
RS232 as an extra. It's a shame that the 
manual does not include the full data on the 
6522, but then you can't have everything. 



If you have an interest in interfacing your 
Dragon to the outside world then this 
device is a very good buy indeed. Q 

Pnrieat RS232 I/O Interface Prtae£54.50%elaa 
Dragon 32<^plcrSteve's Electronics Castle 
Arcade. Cardiff. Tel: 0222-41905 



PCN AUGUST11 1984 





-Geetah 

Marketing J 


' Cheetah Marketing Ltd, 
24 Roy Street. 

London EC1R3DJ. 

Tel:01 833 4909 
Telex 8954958. 


FREE 

advice 



Cheetah Marketing Ltd. wish to advise you 
that rather than throw your old fashioned joystick in the dustbin. 
Why don’t you stir your tea with it? 

On August 22nd spoons will become obsolete. 

' v ~- The age of the BUitl is dawning. 


PCN AUGUST 111984 


STORAGE SCALE-UP 

The new heavyweight Alpha 10 hard disk system for the IBM PC is weighed up by John Lettice. 

(fe 


r desk it 
i bit like 
^yachting. There you 
re, bashing away on the PC, 
when two hulking great 
blokes lug in this sheet steel 
coffin and dump it on one 
side of your desk. You lean 
over to the other side, trying 
desperately to redistribute 
the weight, and you know 
your APS Alpha 10 drives 
have arrived. 

Once everything is nicely 
balanced you review the 
situation. What you have 
here is nothing like the PC 
XT, the standard hard disk 
variant on the IBM PC. This particular 
beast offers twin 10Mb removable disks in 
a very large box which takes up a volume 
comparable to the business section of the 
IBM. Fortunately it doesn't take up as 
much desk space, since they’re stacked on 
top of one another, but the fan does 
produce another substantial blast of hot air 
for the poor sucker sitting opposite. 

Setting up 

Getting the Alpha 1 0 going is easy once you 
know how: the trouble is the manual — six 
pages of A5 if you exclude the Sirius section 
— isn’t totally helpful. 

The hardware hook-up is fairly obvious. 
You slot the IBM personality card pro- 
vided into the PC, connect the ribbon cable 
to the drives, and wonder what to do next. 

The main power switch is round the back 
of the drive unit. The business end houses 
two large black 8in cartridges, and the 
drive doors come as a sort of cowl affair 
which pulls down and locks while the drive 
is turning. Above each drive is a switch with 
two lights on. The yellow light indicates the 
drive is turning, while the red one tells you 
it’s being accessed . Press the switch and the 
drive motor stops. Once the drive has 
stopped turning, the door springs up. 

You need to reboot the PC with the 
system disk included, then run Megachek, 
which prepares the cartridges for use. The 
first page of the manual tells you that the 
Alpha 10 drives will be addressed as C and 
D (E and F if you have an XT) so it comes as 
a bit of a shock when Megachek tells you to 
specify a drive from 0 to 3. These turnout to 
be four cartridge units, and don’t include 
the floppies already installed. 

For a new cartridge you should select 
option e first , followed by option f . Option 
e erases the cartridge, and allows you to 
name it, should you wish . Option f formats 
it ready for use. The menu says of e 
‘initialises the root directory and FAT’ and 
of f ‘formats the z track'. I found this 
confusing, and was even more confused by 
the explanation, misprinted as c, saying 
‘format tract 0 and 1 with E5’. 

Option f asks you to specify various 



PCN PRO-TEST 




parameters such as interleave, CRC 
off, ECC on or off and dwell-time counter. 
These will be relatively opaque to the 
novice user , and this isn't helped by the way 
it asks you to respond in hex. But just hit 
Return and it'll specify default values, so 
once you’ve worked this out you shouldn't 
have too many problems. 

In use 

In general the drives are pleasingly fast . but 
you may find you have to adjust the 
dwell-time counter to maintain this. A 
drive shuts down if it isn’t accessed for a 
preset time, so if the time you set is a little 
short for the use you want to make of it you 
have to wait for the motor to restart before 
you can tinker with your pearls of wisdom. 

In these situations the drives are slower 
than most floppies, and unfortunately it's 
not particularly easy to reset the dwell-time 
once you have data on the cartridge. 

Software is usually a bit of a problem 
when running a hard disk . as many of the 
programs you'll have in stock won't be 
configurable for it, and others will have 
little niggles that stop them working 
efficiently. Computopro, the supplier of 
the Alpha 10, conceded that 1-2-3 wouldn't 
work with them, but I got Volkswriter 
Deluxe working with it fairly easily. 

Being a cautious soul I decided to keep a 
backup disk — this, as it turned out, was my 
first mistake. It made sense to keep the 
program and data all on the one cartridge, 
then use the backup procedure from 
Megachek to clone it onto the second 
cartridge. Unfortunately, this appears to 
be a sector by sector copy and, lo and 
behold, the program corrupted as it was 
copied across. 

The standard PCDOS copy c:*.* b: 
worked much more efficiently, and was 
faster, so the Megachek backup seems 
pretty redundant to me. The thing to 
remember, of course, is to copy the good 
program onto the cartridge with the bad 


Nothing daunted I sol- 
diered on, and discovered a 
frustrating little oddity. The 
Alpha 10 manual never 
actually tells you to switch 
the unit on, though we can 
assume most people will 
work out that they have to. 
The burning question is, 
when do you switch it on? 
Laugh if you like, but listen 
first. 

When the drives are po- 
wered up, they start turning, 
and seem to whip through 
some sort of diagnostic 
routine , subsidiary to the PC’s. Now , if you 
switch them on first before booting up the 
PC, all is well; however, switching the PC 
on and then switching the drives on is a 
whole new ball game. More often than not 
the PC will be unable to read the cartridge, 
and the drives will lock up, forcing you to 
power everything down and start again. 

This is particularly disturbing because 
the small shut-down switches at the front 
usually won't operate in this state, so you 
have to power the unit down while the 
drives are still turning. 

I couldn’t work out exactly what was 
going wrong, but there really should be a 
note in the manual telling you the correct 
order to do things in. 


I'U say at the outset that the idea of paying 
£3,400 for anything fills me with horror. 
That said, you’re still talking about this sort 
of level for a hard disk unit. With just two 
cartridges the Alpha 10 has twice the 
storage capacity of most hard disks , and the 
fact they’re removable is good for security , 
and means you can increase your storage 
capacity simply by buying another car- 
tridge. On the security front, by the way, 
did you ever hear the US Navy used to 
dismantle its disk drives every night until it 
discovered cartridges? 

Convenience factors aside .there are still 
questions about the Alpha 10. Something 
this price surely deserves a decent manual. 
The one with the unit just doesn't shape up, 
and is liable to confuse anyone who doesn't 
have relevant experience. 

What I think we’re really looking for 
here is a step by step beginners guide that 
simply tells you how to get it going, 
followed by increasingly technical sections 
with examples of possible uses for some of 
the software's facilities. This would pay off 
in the long run, as the more experienced 
customers are in the use of products, the 
more likely they are to buy more of them. 

Dm Alpha 10 cartridge hard disk system Mb 
£3,400 plus VA Hh*»i IBM l‘( Ottwr iwiIim 

1,01-6313253 


PCN AUGUST 11 1984 




SYBEX Computer Books are available through most leading bookshops and 
computer stores as well as COMPUTER BOOKSHOP of Birmingham, W. H. SMITH 
and JOHN MENZIES. In case of difficulty contact us directly, enclosing your cheque 
or money order (include 80 p for postage and packing). 

SYBEX Ltd., 

Unit 4, Bourne Industrial Estate, 

Craytord, Kent DAI 4BU, Tel: Craytord (0322) 57717 


/"V 

^SYBBfCOMPUTERBOOKS 


SYBEX 





MiJNg'JU 7 ? M 


SOFTWARE 


\V- 




WHAT’S NEW • WHATS NEW • WHATS NEW « 


r, Software Editor, PCM, 62 
<on W1A 2HC; 
'nd please don’t forget to include 


GAMES 

Crusoe for the Spectrum is an 
unusual adventure as it displays 
the figure of Crusoe on his 
island, amid fruit trees, cacti 
and dangerous beasts. You 
direct the castaway's moves and 
tell him to eat, drink and so on, 
while details of this lonely 
heart's life status, including 
vigour, thirst and hunger fill the 
rest of the screen. Colourful 
and fun at first, the slow 
keyboard response, the tiny 
map and the figure's lethargic 
progress make the game's suc- 
ss less than certain 
Factory Breakout is a three 
screen arcade-style game, with 
five selectable levels of difficul- 
ty featuring Zirky the robot. 
The program is really a series of 
loosely linked games, each 
quite well done , but still lacking 
star appeal. 

The excellent Choc a Bloc 


Charlie on the 64 is a sort of 
Pengi, but the graphics, sound 
and difficulty make it one of the 
best versions we’ve ever seen. 
The program loads quickly with 
Pavloda and Charlie starts in 
the middle of a rectangle of 
blocks. The aim is to shunt the 
four purple blocks together to 
create a time door through 
which he can escape. Charlie 
can hurl grenades to move 
blocks, which rapidly expends 
his energy. A major problem is 
each purple block is the only 
barrier between him and the 
four guardians, so strategy is 
essential. There are 16 levels, 
but the game's so tricky that 
getting past the first level before 
Charlie’s time or energy run out 
is nigh on impossible. Nice one. 

Commodore hasn’t forgot- 
ten its Vic 20 following and has 
added two new games for the 
unexpanded Vic, and another 
for the Vic with 16K expansion 
to its range. Rapier Punch puts 
you in a gloomy room searching 
for a hidden treasure chest. 
Only your immediate sur- 
roundings are lit. You must be a 
fast-mover as there's a timer, 
and spinning crosses, dragons 
and their eggs to hamper your 
murky progress by ending one 


of your three precious lives. 

Starbase has a Defender-type 
background, and you move a 
cursor over alien ships to pre- 
vent them stealing scientists. 
We’ve seen better games than 
these on the unexpanded Vic. 

In Bomber Mission you take 
the hot seat of a World War II 
fighter bomber in this part- 
simulator, part-strategy game. 
You must select targets in the 
time available, shooting down 
enemy fighters as you go. 

Now The Evil Dead is finally 
here, it’s a disappointment. 
There are no instructions, so 
unless you've seen the film you 
only know you’re supposed 
ultimately to throw a book you 
findonthefire.The location is a 
series of rooms seen from 
above, and moving to the edge 
scrolls the screen left or right, 
not that there's much to the 
house. Weapons such as axes, 
swords and what look like 
baseball bats have different 
effects on the creatures you 
encounter, which include dis- 
embodied legs and hands, 
green demons, zombies and the 
like. The graphics are simple, 
the sound's fair, but the game 
lacks the excitement promised 
by the advertising. 


UTILITIES 

Graphs are popular this week, 
and R & P’s Instant Graph 
Plotter for the Dragon looks 
good. The 27-page manual de- 
tails how to use the package 
with many examples. You can 
specify up to 25 data points and 
a number of useful routines 
such as area under curve, 
tangents and calculation of 
averages are included. 

Data Plot on the Spectrum is 
far simpler, but offers the 
display options of graph or 
tabular format with automatic 
scaling. This one comes with 
sample data dets to let you see 
how the program can be used, 
but there's precious little docu- 


Random Access Mailing on 
the BBC is a sort of database 
system for bulk mailing applica- 
tions. It's a dedicated system 
which prompts you for entries 
against headings like address, 
telephone number and contact, 
and has facilities for using some 
Wordwise commands. Data 
can be sorted, searches per- 
formed, labels printed and so 
on. Micro Aid can also provide 
suitable stationery such as 
labels and letter headed fan- 
fold. ESI 


Gems of Stradus £7.95 Kuma 07357 4335 
Holdfast £7.95 Kuma 07357 4335 

Zen Assembler £19.95 Kuma 07357 4335 

Home Budgetting £9.95 Kuma 07357 4335 

ATMOS 

Spooky Mansion £6.95 Lothlorien 0625 876642 


R/Access Mailing £36.46 Micro Aid 0209 831274 

COLOUR GENIE 


Mix-n-Match 


£4.95 Soar Valley SW 0533 532488 


COMMODORE 64 

Wimbledon '64 £8.95 Merlin Software 0438 316561 

The Evil Dead £6.99 Palace Software 01 -278 0751 

Choc a Bloc Charlie £6.95 Lothlorien 0625 876642 


Crusoe 

Factory Breakout 
Simple Business 
Accounts 
Data Plot 


Starbase 
Rapier Punch 
Bomber Mission 


DRAGON 

£7.50 R & P International P0 Box 29, 
Wembley, Middx. 

£4.95 Monarch 0920 69407 

MSX 

£19.95 Kuma Computers 07357 4335 

SPECTRUM 

£6.00 Automata 0705 735242 
£5.50 Poppy Soft 0635 23490 
£11.95 Flowchart 0933 650073 

Serious Ac 
05655468 

VIC 20 

£4.99 Commodore 01 -930 6711 
£4.99 Commodore 01-930 6711 
£4.99 Commodore 01 -930 6711 

ZX81 

£5.95 Lothlorien 0625 876642 


PCN AUGUST 11 191 


iiiBSsSS 

anr®Rn 

lUiSiki 

■ alpha * . 1 

1 •* "V*! * o»pna , ■ 

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This IBM database program greatly impressed Neville Ash. 


sheets can be sorted or searched as a single 



T here are probably more database 
programs on the market than any 
other type of software and this has 
led to confusion for users and dealers alike. 
So when another database package is 
announced what really is the difference 
and who is it for? 

Features 

Database Manager II is aimed at existing 
users of programs like WordStar, Multi- 
plan, VisiCalc, Volkswriter and Easywri- 
ter. They all have one thing in common — 
lots of data already stored for use with 
these programs. When they want to add to 
their software or use another program with 
the existing data they must start all over 
again entering the same information 
details, which can be a waste of time and 
effort. 

The new package allows users to change 
software and use existing information 
without any time-consuming re-entering of 
the details. It’s also a powerful database 
system in its own right , so movi ng up from a 
single-purpose program like WordStar, or 
Multiplan to Lotus 1-2-3 can be done with a 
minimum of bother. 

Documentation 

Apart from the manual with its five 
sections of introduction, data integration 
menu, applications, appendices, and an 
index, there’s also a cassette tape for 
people who don’t read manuals. 

Getting started 

Database Manager II needs I28K RAM 
with DOS 1.1 and 192K under higher 
versions of DOS. The package consists of a 
program disk, data disk, cassette and the 
manual . The first operating step is to make 
working copies of the program. After 
formatting a disk the modules are transfer- 
red from the master program disk to the 
working one. And in fact the one master 
disk contains sufficient modules for two 
working program disks. Update 1 and 2. 
Alternatively , the program can be installed 
on a hard disk system. With the master 
program kept safely, additional working 
copies can be made if anything happens to 
the disks in use 

After loading the working copy, you'll 
see that the main menu has 18 different 
options. Aside from option 14, data 
integration, there are all the normal 
choices of entering data, viewing it, 
sorting, searching, changing, deleting, 
calculations, or reports. 

In use 

Apart from the data integration feature, 
the program uses Soundex phonetic 
search. This means that even if a mistake is 
made in the details entered for a search, 
DBMII can still find it. 

The integration feature allows informa- 
tion on a spreadsheet like Multiplan to be 
turned into mailing labels and standard 
letters. A number of Multiplan or 1-2-3 
spreadsheets can be consolidated into a file 
where size is limited only by the disk 
capacity. Later on , the consolidated work- 


large file. 

The first step is to create an input form 
with the relevant headings — fields. When 
this form is used, at the bottom of the 
screen the restart, skip to, end, previous 
entry, back-up and date options are all 
initiated by function keys. When viewing 
records already entered, the options are 
next record, main menu, change forward, 
reverse and jump. 

Sorting offers two basic choices: fast in 
memory sort with report generation or 
multi-level disk sort. The fast sorting 
facility is limited to a maximum of 2,500 
records. Sorting can be carried out 
alphabetically, numerically or by date in 
ascending or descending order. Using the 
integrating power, there are two options. 
You can create a DMBII database from 
information stored in Lotus 1-2-3, Visi- 
Calc, Multiplan, dBascII or ASCII files. 
This is known as importing. The other 
option is to move information from DBM 1 1 
to one of these programs. 

To send information from Lotus 1-2-3 to 
DBMII, select option one from the data 
import menu. State which drive contains 
the 1-2-3 worksheet and the program will 
show a directory of all the . WKS files on 
disk. If the file had field names enter Y for 
Yes, then enter the name for this new 
database. 

As there is a limit of 40 fields per record, 
the spreadsheet file should be edited down 
to this figure before transferring, or 
DBMII will tell you the file contains too 
many columns. 

With Multiplan, the file must be stored 
in symbolic form, so data has to be loaded 
into Multiplan, then tos — transfer 
options symbolic — is typed, followed by 
return and then the data is saved to disk 
by enteringTs — Transfer/Save — together 
with the file name. 

To extract information from a WordStar 
or similar text file, the dex — data 


exchange format — is used. This is option 
eight on the import data sub-menu. 

To use data from DBMII with other 
programs the data export menu is used. So 
information from DBMII could be used in 
a Lotus 1-2-3 worksheet file. Option 14 is 
selected, then option one — DBMII to 
Lotus, select the drive for the .WKS file, 
answer Yes to transfer the file. Enter the 
record number to start at, the number of 
records and the files which are to be 
transferred. Similar approaches are used 
with Multiplan, dBasell, VisiCalc, etc. 
I've concentrated on the integrating side as 
this is the main feature of the program, 
but it’s also a friendly database system in its 
own right. 

Each of the records can hold up to 40 
fields of 60 characters each — 2,400 
characters per record, with the only 
limitation being disk capacity. 

Verdict 

This is a very useful program , especially for 
users of existing IBM PC programs who 
want to start using the integrated packages 
without having to enter all that informa- 
tion again. Q3 


RATING (/5) 



Nam Database Manager II — The Integrator 
Application Database Price £210 Srsteni IBM 


Estate. Basingstoke. Spencers Wood, Reading 
RG7 1 AW. 0734 884611 Fenaet Disk Other 



AUGUST1119S4 




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cancelled order. And move them it certainly did. We’re still selling around 
30 boxes a day, that’s over 30,000 disks a month. So we bought some more, 
and are going to continue selling at the same price. 

We also got a lot of people on the phone asking if we could supply slightly 
fewer disks, and as you see, we’re now offering boxes in 25’s as well. 

Every order of 25 or 50 comes packed in the same rigid plastic storage box 
with four dividers, we've kept the same high specification and all disks 
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To order, just clip the coupon below. 

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(qty) storage box(es) filled with 50 s/sidcd disks at £59. 50 each. 

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GRAPHIC ACCOUNT 


Hard-copy visual displays of data are now possible on your 64. Barry Miles explains. 


W hat do you do when you've pro- 
duced a neat set of data from a 
spreadsheet on your Commodore 
64? Obviously you want to take advantage 
of your machine's graphics capabilities and 
draw up a nice graph, perhaps dump it to a 
printer to impress your bank manager. 
Well , now you can. thanks to Chartpack-64 
which is based on the already successful 
command system found in Screen 
Graphics-64 and Ultrabasic-64. 

Getting started 

The disk is DOS protected with a front end 
loader which, when installed, requests a 
secondary address should your particular 
printer require it. You're also asked if your 
printer interface needs any ASCII transla- 
tions and reminded to set any interface 
switches. If you own an Epson you're 
fortunate because there's a special version 
of the program for you. For the rest of us, 
the manual gives helpful details of suitable 
interfaces, but all of them American. I used 
'The Connection’ to interface an Epson FX 
80 to my 64. 

Although the disk is protected, the 
publishers are generous enough to supply 
back-up copies of the program on the disk . 

Features 

Chartpack reads sequential data files and 
from these can produce the sorts of labelled 
charts , line and shaded bar graphs shown in 
the illustrations, as well as pie charts. You 
can specify maxima and minima, base 
values for the axes, bar grouping, legend 
placing and screen colours. Two sizes of 
graph are available: there’s a normal high- 
resolution screen dump for small charts 
and a slower dump which will fill an A4 
sheet of paper. 

Limitations are a maximum of 200 data 


points and the default setting is four data 
sets of 50 points each. 

Documentation 

This takes the form of a carefully planned, 
48-page A5 booklet, which starts with full 
loading instructions and goes on to a series 
of very useful definitions which will aid 
newcomers. There’s a detailed tutorial 
based around data to hack in, as well as 
data contained in sample files on the disk 
— two very useful methods of getting to 
grips with the package. 

An in-depth reference section and 
appendices follow. 

In use 

Access to Chartpack's facilities is via one 
main menu and eight sub-menus. A good 
feature is that the current menu number is 
displayed at the top left of the screen and 
you can return to a higher order menu by 
entering zero. As a panic measure you can 
always hit the run/stop restore com- 
bination, but to get back to the main menu 
without loss of data then requires entering 
goto 5 — somewhat messy. 

The programmer has put a lot of effort 
into making the package pretty user- 
friendly. In fact , the user with no program- 
ming knowledge at all can create charts for 
presentation with a few minutes practice. 

Part of the package's flexibility comes 
from the fact that the format for a given 
chart is controlled by a data file , so you can 
store a number of these for use with various 
sets of data. The ability to get hard copy of 
the charts is what turns this inexpensive 
program into a real business tool. 

There are some nice ‘default’ touches, 
for example: if you try to display a chart 
which you haven't yet specified you're 
taken straight to the Chart Type Selection 


menu. Once a chart has been displayed 
on-screen it can be instantly recalled by 
pressing one of the function keys. Similar- 
ly, F5 allows you to jump from the disk 
display to the main menu. 

Once you have a chart exactly as you 
want it you can save it to disk as a graphics 
screen, much faster than loading the data 
sets, the chart definition and redrawing. 

Verdict 

Chartpack offers a great deal for a low 
price . Its main use will probably be to make 
the daunting rows and columns typical of 
spreadsheet calculations accessible to a 
wider audience, and more immediately 
comprehensible to those who need to see 
results quickly. The program is easy to use 
and lets you redesign graph formats with 
the minimum of fuss. 

o 



Mas Commodore 64, 1541 disk drive. 1525/ 
1526 printer (or Epson FX80/Gemini-l(Vl5- 
phn interface) Mae 124 95 MMar Abacus 
Fermat Disk Laapmos Basic/machine code 

Other 1 1 1 ris e s None Oa B at a Adamtofl, 18 


Norwich Avenue. Rochdale, Lancashire 0706- 
524304 




PCN AUGUST 11 1 




Six from ADAMSOFT 



ADAMSOFT <***, 

18 Norwich Avenue, Rochdale, Lancs. OL11 5JZ. Tel: 0706-524304 

Dealer enquiries welcome. Deduct 10% on 2 or more products 


M COURSEWINNER 

The Punters Computer "rogram 

^ computer to get the edge on the huoknukrr 

• ( ( >t’RStWINNER contain* a daiahnr lull .4 detailed 
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• The program anaivso theve factor* cumbumJ with the retails 


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We have a large range of Grundig models from 1 4" to 26" 
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Available for SPECTRUM (4SK). ZXII (I6K). BBC (B). COMMODORE 64. DRAGON. 

37 Councillor Lane, Cheadle, Cheshire. Phone: 061-428 7425 




Mssim 


Tennis 

menace 


Retail/mail order 

Wimbledon may be over, but 
that doesn’t mean you have to 
forget tennis for another year. 
Sinclair has just released Match 
Point to let you act out your 
favourite McEnroe fantasies. 

The game closely resembles 
Atari's Tennis, and while you 
can't play doubles, you can play 
against your Spectrum or a 
human opponent , or just sit and 
watch an exhibition match. 

Objectives 

Beating your opponent is the 
name of the game and as this 
version is played according to 
standard lawn tennis rules this 
means winning a match which is 
played over three or five sets, 
the winner being the first to 
reach either two or three sets 
respectively. Within each set 
the winner is the first to win six 
games and have a clear lead of 
two. All the rules are clearly 
explained on the inlay and, as 
the computer keeps the score, 
there's no point challenging it. 

In play 

The view over the green court is 
from the commentary box, the 
umpire sitting halfway down on 
the right and the ball boys 
crouching at mid-left. They 
even run onto the court to 
retrieve net shots. The players 


are very well drawn, though 
they're somewhat knock-kneed 
and their rackets on the large 
side. 

The crowd is shown by simple 
blobs of colour in the specta- 
tors’ stands, while the player’s 
names, the previous sets, the 
current score etc, are displayed 
at the rear of the court and any 
linesman's calls are shown at 
the foot of the screen. 

Choosing skill levels means 
selecting the quarterfinals, 
semifinals or if you feel capable , 
the finals themselves. There is 
also the option to select the 
number of sets — one, three or 
five. 

Control is via keyboard or 
joystick, and while a joystick is 
really necessary to make the 
most of the game, you can 
customise the keyboard control 
for each player. The Psion 
program automatically sets 
your stroke to fore- or back- 
hand, but sometimes it seems a 
bit arbitrary as to whether you 
hit the ball or not. The type of 
shot is also varied according to 
your movement when you hit 
the ball, giving lob shots, vol- 
leys and drop-shots. 

Verdict 

With the two player option, 
the classy graphics and the 
number of options, Sinclair has 
produced a good'un — far 
better than some of its recent 
attempts to entice Spectrum 


RATING ( /5) 




Lapping 
it up 


Full Throttle borrows heavily 
from Pole Position and is Mic- 
romega's follow-up to Code- 
name Mat. It's a SOOcc motorcy- 
cle racing game with 40 compet- 
ing riders and ten race tracks. 

Objectives 

Your aim is not tocover as many 
miles as possible in the shortest 
time, nor to set the fastest lap 
time. Your task is simply to 
come first. 

In play 

Once loaded you're presented 
with maps of the ten tracks, 
from the relatively simple Sil- 
verstone to the horrendously 
complex Nurburgring. Having 
selected one of these you either 
opt for a practice bash on your 
own or decide how many laps 
you want the race to be (up to 
five) . Then it’s off to the starting 
line and away. 

There are only four controls: 
right, left, accelerate and 
brake. Acceleration takes you 
to the top speed of 175mph 
quite quickly, with a rising buzz 
mimicking the exhaust note. 
Right and left lean your bike 
across the track and braking is 
quite harsh. The temptation is 
simply to bum up to max speed 
and hold it there, which you 
soon discover is a lousy strategy 
as you career off the track and 
into the grass on your first 


practice laps of each ci 
before getting into racing prop- 
er. This lets you trundle round 
any course at a leisurely rate, 
learning the vagaries of the 
course and how best to tackle 
bends. The best policy is to 
hammer into left-handers, 
choosing a line from the right of 
the course, while right bends 
require a more careful 
approach from the left, braking 
as you enter the bend, and 
accelerating briskly round the 
apex. This is fine on your tod, 
but harder when you're jock- 
eying for position with up to 
forty other riders. 

My favourite feature of the 
game is the skid — really 
authentic this. The idea in 
motorcycle racing is to go into a 
bend just fast enough to drift 
(skid) round, but under con- 
trol. While the control in this 
version is limited, it's still great 
fun and very well done indeed, 
with a neat sound effect. I also 
liked the fact that clashing 
fairings with another rider or 
coming off the track doesn’t 
stop the game — you simply 
lose speed. 

Verdict 

Full Throttle is not an easy 
game. 

The graphics are reasonable, 
the road and mountains scroll 
around quite smoothly but the 
riders are a bit flickery. The 
sound is adequate and the game 
just compelling enough to make 
you have ‘just one more go' to 
beat the others. 


Rating (/5) 

Lasting appeal 
Playability ««««« 

Use erf machine Wft ftWW 


AUGUST I119M 







Deadly 

dangers 


In the alliterative style of 
Dungeons and Dragons, Mons- 
ters and Magic is a fantasy 
adventure game featuring cas- 
tles, giants, evil auras, headless 
idols, temples, treasure and the 
usual trappings of a warped 
imagination. 

Objectives 

Cast as a Luis Palau of yore you 
have been despatched to search 
for the 'Word of Truth'. In- 
structions abound on the col- 
ourful inlay card although, in- 
stead of simply listing the essen- 
tial command words, it rather 
unhelpfully suggests that you 
should jot them down after they 
appear on screen. 

In play 

Before loading the main game 
you must choose your character 
from those perennial crusaders: 
Fighter, Cleric, Thief and Ran- 
ger. Having then elected to join 
a race of humans, dwarves or 
elves you are allocated a per- 
formance rating for your dex- 
terity, strength and intelli- 

Having loaded the game , you 
may buy various weapons and 
magic rings to assist you on your 
travels. There is also an 
assortment of baddie-bashing 
spells available such as Stun 


and Mind Blast. 

Apart from a small schematic 
diagram of each room this is 
virtually a text-only adventure. 
Unfortunately, the text is so 
banal that you may be tempted 
to add a few choice phrases of 
your own to liven things up. 

After commanding the com- 
puter to open the pub , get me a 
pint, drink my health, spell 
'Mississippi', release George 
Davis, hit the road and then 
drop dead, there came the 
rather ill-bred retort — - Eh?’ 

The program's vocabulary 
being seemingly exhausted, I 
wandered around the corridors 
smashing vials of holy water 
while roughing up a few giants 
on the way. 

Behaving like that I was, not 
surprisingly, soon dead. As if to 
compound the tedium I had to 
reload the datafile containing 
the dungeon ‘module’ each 
time I wanted another go — 
which wasn’t often. 

Verdict 

Somebody, somewhere, has 
previously overestimated the 
gullibility of the software mar- 
ket, not to mention its spending 
power. Quite why anyone 
should bother with this one is 
beyond me. Almost identical 
textual games are so well estab- 
lished that they have become 
part of micro folklore. In fact, 
the most hazardous part of this 
‘adventure’ was getting it to 
load in the first place. 




Firing 

practice 

Hum 3D Tank Zone Sr«aai BBC 
B Metflt.9S Mhlir Dvnabvic. 
0226 07707 NraMt Cassette 
Lan(M(t Basic machine code 

Three dimensional battle 
games may be bombarding us 
from all angles but this sophisti- 
cated new version from Dyna- 
byte has several striking differ- 
ences — not least the introduc- 
tion of aircraft into the area of 

Objectives 

As commander of the city’s 
defences you must destroy 
marauding enemy tanks and 
aircraft using either joystick or 
keyboard. A comprehensive 
set of instructions and play 
options precedes the main 

In play 

Viewed through the missile 
command scanner the pano- 
rama features the green on 
black wire ‘graphic style’ 
(favoured by its Arcade fore- 
runners) to create an excellent 
3D effect. The usual pyramids 
and missile sites populate the 
foreground above which fighter 
planes and helicopters attack in 
horizontal waves. 

Beneath the battle zone is an 
instrument console which 
monitors your energy and 
shield strength levels. It also 
features a circular radar scan for 
locating unseen enemy tanks 
and an early warning alarm for 
impending air-raids. 

The air-raid and tank battles 
are almost completely indepen- 
dent entities although both 


appear on the screen simul- 
taneously. 

In the tank battles radar is 
used to pinpoint the enemy tank 
position and then the scanner is 
rotated through 90 degree steps 
until the tank is in view. 
Although the tanks are con- 
tinually dodging around you 
can usually see them off in the 
early stages through skilful aim . 

Although air raids aren't as 
potentially destructive as the 
tanks, successive raids can chip 
away at your protective shields. 
To deter them you're equipped 
with a fully manoeuvrable anti- 
aircraft gun which requires split 
second timing and accuracy for 
a direct hit. The graphic detail 
on the helicopters and jets was 
so good it seemed a shame to 
blow them up — still, mustn't 
forget there’s a war on. 

With so much going on, the 
screen is surprisingly unclut- 
tered and the visual impression 
crisp. Using up to nine keys 
while alternating between the 
two areas of contention may 
seem a bit of a handful. Howev- 
er, the objectives are always 
achievable and a typical game 
will last about five minutes. 

Verdict 

The authors obviously recog- 
nise that, rather than being 
blown up every ten seconds, 
players are encouraged to de- 
velop theirskills and enjoyment 
by scoring successes early on in 
the game. Thoughtful design 
plus innovative, professional 
production place 3D Tank 
Zone in the top flight of its kind. 


PCN AUGUST!! 1 





SPECTRUM 16/48K 


PCN PROGRAMS: 


SPECTRUM 16/48K 



■ BiM felt! 


n 


Machine: Spectrum 16/48K 
Language : Sinclair Basic 
Application: Game 
Author -.Peter Lloyd 



The Spectrum's scrolling capabilities 
are used to the full in this fast-moving 
game. It is written by Peter Lloyd from 
Weobley in Hereford. 

You must guide Mega the millipede 
through the garden as it scrolls past. 
The garden is full of spikey beanpoles 
and skull-and-crossbones which you 
must carefully avoid. As you dodge in 
and out of the beanpoles you encounter 
many goodies which you eat to score 
points. These tasty morsels include 
Megafruit, smiling pumpkins, bottles 
and bananas and they are scattered 
around the garden in abundance. 

Mega, no ordinary millipede, is blue 
with a white flashing head and you can 
move him diagonally left and right in his 
constant downward slide by pressing 
the 0 and 1 keys. 

As you steer Mega around the garden 
you are treated to a musical rendition of 
Polly Doodle. You have four lives and 
there is a high score displayed between 
each game. 

The program has one poke only, at 
location 23692 and this sets the auto- 
matic scrolling so that the scroll? 
prompt does not appear. 

Programs 1 and 2 should be typed in 
separately. Type in program 1, which 
sets up the user-defined characters, 
then save and run it. Next, type new and 
type in program 2. The user-defined 
characters should be present in the 
listing as you type it in. 

To save the whole game as one 
program type goto 2000. You should not 
stop the tape after the first part has been 
saved, as the user-defined characters 
will automatically save after this, r-1 


We pay an average of £50 for published 
programs, taking into account length, 
complexity, originality and the program- 
ming skill demonstrated in the program . So 
why not cash In? 

As well as money, you reap fame by 
having your name published and knowing 
that your program will be snipped out and 



5 REM ** f 
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Id BORDER 2 
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110 DRTR “B" 
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120 DRTR "C" 
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filed away by computer enthusiasts 
throughout the country. 

Send your contribution, on disk or 
cassette, together with a plain paper listing 
and brief summary notes to: 

Nickie Robinson, Personal Computer 
News, 62 Oxford St, London W1A 2IIG. 

All disks and cassettes will be returned as 
soon as possible after evaluation or publica- 



130 > DRTR 
99 , ©5 

14.0 DRTR 
©5 , ©2 , 2© 
150 DRTR 
© , 86 , 12© 
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.200 BEER 


"D" , ©5 , 33 , 4-2 , ©2 , 20 ,2S, 
•E" / ©2 , 127 , 1 07 , 127 ,33, 
"F " , 60,24,60, 110,©©, 10 
" G ” , 12© , 3© , 5© , 4-4- , 54- , 2© 
. 5 , - 10 : STOP 




PCN PROGRAMS: ' 1 


Resets bright, inverse, 
FLASHandovERsettingsto 
ensurefunctioningof 
attribute statements 
Opening notesof program 
) Flashing borderuntil key is 

Initialise highscore 
Start of main routine. Prints 
at bottom of screen to 
produce scrolling effect 
Empty print statement 
scrollsscreen.printshead 
ofmillipede 

Prints ki I ler beanpole at row 
20 in a random position 
Prints random goodie at 

Poke to stop 'scroll?* 
appea ri ng on the screen, 
(shift) Ahalts program 
[shift] Z aborts current 

Displays headinblue 
Checks for keyboard input 
and ensures Mega hasn't 
goneoffthesideofthe 

If Mega has bumped into 
skullorbeanpole,GOTOi320 
Megaeatsgoodie, 
increases score 
Displays scoreand number 

Readsdata, changes pitch 

PI ays n ote of pitch read in 
line 1260 

Repeat main routine 
Crash subroutine, reduces 
number oflives 
Plays scale withflashing 

Goes to start ofmain 
routine 

1380-1400 Plays scale with flashing 
border 


1200 


1220 


1240 


1260 

1280 


1340 

1360 


1420 Gameover 

1440 Printsscore 

1460-1480 Changeshighscoreif 

increasedandprintsitin 
flashing colours, prints 

1500 Timedelaytoobserve 

screen 

1520-1560 Reset variables 
1 580-1660 Dataforthetitle (theseare 
graphics charactersfound 
onkeys1to8) 


20 BRIGHT 0 : F 
3 : OUER 0 

4-0 FOR R =0 TO 

. 1 , R . “ 


INUER5E 


STEP 10 


60 GO TO 1O00 

S00 BORDER RND*6: FOR R =0 

PAUSE 10: NEXT A BORDER 
INKEYS THEN RETURN 

520 GO TO 500 

1000 LET HI=0: GO TO 1520 
104-0 PRINT AT 21,0 

1060 PRINT PRINT AT 10. X 

HT 1 ; INK 7; "B" 


1030 > PRINT AT 20.RNDF29: BRIGHT 
1 ; INK 3.; "AAA" 

1100 LET A = I NT (RND*5) +2: PRINT 
BRIGHT l; AT 21,RND*29; INK A ; CHR 


1120 POKE 23622,255 
A" THEN GO SUB 500 

114-0 IF INKEY * = " 2 " 


THEI 


IF INKEY* 
GO TO 


1160 PRINT AT 10.X; "B" 

1130 LET X=X+ < INKEY*="0" AND X<3 
1 >-( INKEY *=" 1 " AND X > 0 ■ 

1200 IF AT TR til, X) =6T THEN GO T 

O 1320 

1220 IF AT T R Ill.X) >64- THEN LET 

SC =SC + ( AT T R (11,X) -60) *10 BEEP 
.003,4-0 BEEP .003.20 BEEP .003 

. 30 

124-0 PRINT AT 1.0. BRIGHT 1; INK 
4. ; "SC " : SC; INK 6;" LI. '.L 


1260 > READ Z . I 
0: RESTORE 210 


LET P = I NT 


- 1 : BORD 
BEEP . 0T5 
XT A : FOR 
-7 . BEEP . 
EXT A . BO 


1230 BEEP . 003.Z+P 

1300 GO TO 1020 
1320 LET L=L— 1. IF L < 1 
O 1330 

134-0 FOR A=-7 TO 0 STEP 
.05 , A *5 OUT 254- , A *20: 
NEXT A 

1360 GO TO 1020 
1330 FOR A = 1 0 TO 2 STEF 
ER RND*7. BEEP .075, A 
. A — 1 : BEEP .075, A -2: NE 
A = 1 TO 10: BORDER RNDi 

075 , A : BEEP . 075 , A - 1 : t 
RDER 0 

1400 BEEP .5,10 CL S 
1420 BORDER 0: INPUT "' 

T 5.6: INK 6; BRIGHT 1; 


-II THEN LET HI=SC: P 
FLASH 1; INK 2; PA 
ER 6; "HIGH: "i INK 5; FLASH 0; P 
PER 0;" " ; HI GO TO 1500 

- PRINT AT 14.5: INK 4; "High* 


OUT 254 , A : 


5 ; h 

1500 FOR A =0 TO 10© 

BEEP . 005 , A X 5 : NE XT 

1520 LET X = 1 5 LET L =4 RESTORE 

1540 INK 1 : PAPER 0 : BORDER 1 

LS 

1560 LET SC =0 

1530 DATA JHU JML JL ■ ■ JL -1 



SPECTRUM 16/48H 



PCN PROGRAMS: 



PCN PROGRAMS: 


SPECTRUM 16/48K 




r'i£ r n . T i. ■ 


1680 Printstitle 

1700-1760 Printsscoresandvaluesof 
the Mega fruit 

1780 SetsupA$forthetitle 

screen 


1700 PRINT RT 12,12; I 

ES : " ; RT 14,7 ; INK 2;" 

INK 5; " SO POINTS " 
740 PRINT RT 13,7; IN 


POINTS 

1760 PRINT RT £0,7; IN 
INK s; 100 POINTS •• 

1 BV^PETE R^LL OY D * 

G KEYS '1' AND O RUOIDING THE 
KILLER BEANPOLES AND EATING THE 

G gggII%Sv Is ^? Y ?8 

1790 INK S PLOT 1,1 DRAW 253.0 
DRAU O . ITS : DRAW -2S3 . O DRAW 
0 . -173 : INK 1 

1 TO LEN A % -20 

THEN LET P=5. 


l g?*TS P l. 

1840 PRINT AT 10 . 1 
2 ; A* < A TO A +29 > 
I860 READ X: IF X = 

E 2100 LET X=0 
1SSO BEEP -03.X 
1900 NEXT A 


ilaysAS in multicolours 
d data and play tune 
eatstitle routine 


21: POKE 23692.-1; 

RINT NEXT A 

I960 BORDER O. INP 

19SO POKE £3692 . -1 
20OO CLEAR SAUE 

INE 2020: SAdE "H 

2020 ‘ CL S ^f^BORDER 


TO lO. 
IPEDE 

T E 3 " C i 


i: CLS PRINT AT 10,1; 

1; BRIGHT 1; " PLEASE WAIT FOR CH 

RRACTERS. PRINT AT 19,0 

2040 FOR A = 0 TO S BEEP . 1,A: NE 


XT A. LOAD 

nn gs?A 

4 , 4. 4. O, O . 


run (resets variablesand 
clears screen) 

Data fortune, Polly Doodle 


2120 DATA —1 .0,2 .2,2,2 . — j. , — x . — 
-,2,2,2, 2, -1,-1, -1,-1, T, 7, 7>, 7, 
, 2 , 2 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0 , 0,0 


S:2:2:S:£: 


IiSo“data 







Summer special offer 


Billboard Buy & Sell Form 


Take advantage of our special free offer; send your billboard 
advert in on this form and it won’t cost you a penny . This offer is 
valid for forms received up to September 7, 1984, so hurry and 
send your ads to: 

Billboard, Personal Computer News, 62 Oxford Street, London 
Wl A 2HG. Note that we cannot guarantee that your ad appears 
in any specific issue, and that we cannot accept ads from 
commercial organisations of any sort. 

Your name: 

Address: 

Telephone: 


PCN AUGUST 18 1984 






For sufferers of PCNitus 

THE PCN BINDER 

Since March 1 983, a mysterious malady 
has afflicted thousands of people in Britain — 
PCNitus. The symptoms are perplexing. . 

Those afflicted are found fighting their 
way through piles of Personal Computer 


Newsmagazi 
muttering strange things like ‘can’tfind 
the Electron Pro-Test’ and The Spectrum 
Micropaedia must be here somewhere 
But a recent breakthrough has brought 
instant relief to PCNitus sufferers. 

The cure is called the Personal 

ComputerNews 
binder. It’s red, 
yellow and silver 
andholdsfour 
months’ copies 
completely flat, 
even when full. 
You’ll be able to 
read them easily 
and refer to 
them quickly. 


So if you recognise the symptomsabove — take the cure now! 

Just fill in the coupon at the bottom of the page and send it with payment (E3.50 inc postage, 
VAT and handling) to the address below. 


I 1 

BINDER ORDER CARD. Pluse rush me PCN binder(s) at £3.50 each. I enclosed my cheque made 

payable to Personal Computer News. Please charge my Access/Visa/Diners/ American Express card nSJSSSw 


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. Signed ... 

Send to Personal ComputerNews, Binders Department, 53/55 Frith Street, London W1A 2HG 


l : j 



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You save £8 and get all this. 


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But don't delay in claiming your £8 of freebies. Call 
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MICROSHOP 


«: £12 per single column cm. Minimum size 3cm. Series discount available. Also spot colour available, ft 
Column width. 1 column 57mm. 2 colours 1 18mm. 3 columns 179mm. Copy Dates: 10 days prior to publication. 
Contact: Yvonne Charatynowicz 


BtATW CASSETTES 


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PROP€55IOnPLrnPGnETIC5CTD 

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501 2. 1 000 SS-D0 48 track £1 .95 each 
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5022. 1000 0S-D0 96 track £2.40 each 
8 Inch disks IBM format s/w jacket 
8012, 2000 SS-00 48 track £2.30 each 
8022, 2000 DS-00 48 track £3.00 each 


E, ESSEX. 

TEL (0702) 231854 
All disks 1 00% guaranteed 


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MICRO COMPUTER AUCTIONS 

REGULAR MONTHLY AUCTIONS FOR 
ALL MICRO HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE. 
SEND NOW FOR ENTRY FORM OR NEXT CATALOGUE. 
TO: 

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London WC1X8TL 
Tel: 01 -242 001 2 (24 Hours) 


PCN AUGUST 11 1984 






COMMODORE — SPECTRUM 


IK Spectrum/Commodore 64/Vi< 
wHUff* *?[[ rt| FULL r^rf^T 0 Amac ^ c ^ UTILITY,o8TOPmo ^ b “ 

JtySi can stop thimSoSon 'learn ttmr SECRETS LEARN. Llf 

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COMMODORE 64 ONLY 

KIT ot m/coda routines. INCLUDING comp*** RE-NUMBCR AUTO LINE Tl 
l/BL OCK OCLE TE / MEMORY SAVE and more Other TOOLKITS taka up U 


NT tor COMMODORE OWNERS Buy all But 


REKORDAKIT 64 


your C2N must tm kept in Tip Top condition A simple to use 
reproduces the audio output tram your recorder 
AND a TEST TAPE to ensure your tape heads are correctly 

ASHBY PRODUCTS 

P.O. Box 510, BIRMINGHAM B179E5 


If an advertisement 
is wrong we’re here 
to put it right. 


If you see an advertisement in the press, in print 
on posters or in the cinema which you find 
unacceptable, write to us at the address below. 


V 


The Advertising Standards Authority. 

ASA Ltd, Dept 3 Brook House, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HN 


PCN AUGUST!! 1 






Buffoonery with Basil 


If the latest Laughline proved 
one thing, it was that John 
Cleese isn’t a reader of PCN. 

In this he joins Geoff Boycott 
and Eric Bristow. 

How do these people get 
through the week? 


Love on a microchip 


If you thought your micro had i_ 
bit of a twinkle in its eye last 
time you used it, then beware, it 
could be love. 

This is the theme of Electric 
Dreams, a new film from Virgin 
Pictures. The rather sen- 
timental and corny script fol- 
lows teenager Miles Harding 
who buys a personal computer 
to help him organise his love- 
life. His rather-deverer compu- 
ter is soon composing love 
songs to romance the girl up- 
stairs. The problems start when 
the computer falls in love as well 
and won’t let itself be switched 
off. 

The graphics are impressive 
and used to very good effect 
which means that despite a 
watery plot it is a compelling 
film, and if in future you hear a 
little Bach tripping out of your 
computer you’ll know to switch 
it off while there’s still time. 



With no entry from Mr 
Cleese himself the competition 
was wide open. There were 
puns galore on Manuel/manu- 
al, and a few on the Sony theme 
from readers who obviously 
prefer the unOlympic channel. 

But the caption we liked best 
for its terseness, simplicity, and 
overtones of violence came 
from Nick Looker of Ely: ’All 
right, Manuel. Me Basil; this 
monitor; this poke in the disk 
drive.’ Nick wins the £20. 


Olympic way 

In the spirit of the 1984 Olym- 
pics, Database is claiming a 
world first for its Micro Olym- 
pics game — the software 
carries paid-for adver- 





PCN Datelines keeps you in touch with up-coming 
sure you enter them in your diary. 

Organisers who would like details of coming events included i 


PCN DATELINES 


kn : i 


-'ERRORS 


Reporting Sinclair's ambitious 
plans last week we blandly accused 
them of aiming to sell £850,000- 
worth of Spectrums this year. That 
works out to about 8,000 machines, 
and as you may have read lower 
down in the report Sinclair will soon 
be producing 200,000 a month. 
Overkill? A sledgehammer to crack 
a nut? Not a bit of it. Sinclair is 
hoping to sell 850,000 Spectrums. 


NEXT WEEK 

n Lightning We Pro-Test 
: Lightning, the extended 
•like system that looks like the 
hottest Spectrum software for some 

s of London Find your way 
around the capital with our Epson 
HX-20 feature. 

> Grown — Down and almost 
year ago. the Radionics home 
control system is thriving again . We 
check out what it could do in your 
fixed abode. 

Dragon Could your Dragon 
g 'Old MacDonald' while drink- 
a glass of water? Maybe, with 
Jamar speech synthesiser. 
Caramba 64: — Turn into a torero 
with our bull-fight program listing 
for the Commodore 64. 


Make PCN Datelines should send the information at least one month 
before the event. Write to PCN Datelines, Personal Computer 
News, 62 Oxford Street, London W1A 2HG. 


IBM System User Show 
Hampshire Computer Fair 
Walthamsoft ’84 

PCW Show Sept 19-23 

Computer Communication & Control Sept 26-28 
Computer Graphics FX Exhibitions October 9- 1 1 
Electron & BBC Micro User Show October 25-28 
Computers in Action October 30-Nov 1 


OVERSEAS EVENTS 


Olympia, London 
UMIST, Manchester 
Olympia 

Guildhall. Southampton 
Walthamstow, London 

Brighton Centre 
Wembley, London 
Alexandra Palace. London 
Anderson Centre, Glasgow 


Computer Marketplace Exhibitions 01-930 1612 
Database Publications, 061-4568383 
EMAP International Exhibitions 01-837 3699 
Tcstwood Exhibitions, 0703-31557 
London Exhibitions and Promotions 01-554 
5039/3498 

Montbuild 01-486 1951 

Institution of Electrical Engineers 01-240 1871 
Online Conferences Ltd 01-868 4466 
Database Publications 061-456 8383 
Trade Exhibitions. 0764 4204 


Computers in Education Exhibition Sept 3-5 Sydney. Australia 

SE Asia Regional Computer Sept 24-27 Hong Kong 

tion — October 29-Nov 1 Amsterdam, Holland 


Convention and Exhibition Administration. PO 
Box 259, Roseville. NSW 2069, Australia 
Industrial & Trade Fairs International. 021-705 
6707 

Interface Group Inc, Amsteldijk 166, 1079 LH 



W1A2HO01- 
[>istrihutcd by Seymour 


iralynowicz fs 

01-4394242r6sirlllilirii 

1 ‘ ons. tivclynlluw 

Photoset b- Qu 


SWS&SSS: 


ilc rial mav be reproduced in whoi 


PCN AUGUST 11 1984 




The True And HighTec 16 Bit.. 

FROM JAPAN S MOST ADVANCED AND WELL-KNOWN MICRO/MINI COMPUTER 
MANUFACTURER, PANAFACOM. TIED UP WITH SAKATA. 



CURRAH juSPEECH 



The CURRAH mSPEECH is ready to talk immediately on 
power-up. has an infinite vocabulary and outputs speech 
and ZX Spectrum sound through your TV speaker. There 
is no software to load with mSPEECH — sophisticated 
Gate Array technology means you can just plug in and 
start constructing words and sentences like this: 

LETSS = "sp(ee)k (nn|(oo| (ee)vir will say "speak no 
evil"l Further commands control the “voicing” of keys as 
they are pressed, and an intonation facility allows you to 
add expression to the speech. 

mSPEECH is fully compatible with ZX Interface I and 
may be used with the CURRAH mSLOT Expandable 
Motherboard, allowing easy expansion of your ZX 
system. mSPEECH and /xSLOT will also be compatible 
with the CURRAH /^SOURCE unit when it arrives later 
this year, allowing you to write Assembler and FORTH 
statements directly into your BASIC programs I 
Top selling games like ULTIMATE'S Lunar Jetman 
feature mSPEECH voice output — watch out for other 
titles from Bug-Byte. CDS. Ocean. Quicksilva and PSS. 


mSPEECH is available from >V COMET W.H SMITH. 
WOOLWORTHS. GREENS. BOOTS. JOHN MENZIES. 
SPECTRUM STORES and good dealers nationwide — 
or use the form to order the CURRAH mSPEECH — 
winner of the CTA 'Product of the Year' award 1984. 



I To: MkraSpmch Offer. P.O. Ku 1. Omhwl Tyn. « W«r. NO IAJ 


I Pvme Supply Mtorolp—rti unnisi at U1.1S eacn IncL VAT & P s P 

* MkroSiot unofsl at 114.95 each ind VAT A P A P 



I 


I 


See mat the PCW Show Stand 329